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Wifedom : Mrs. Orwell's invisible life / Anna Funder.

by Funder, Anna, 1966-

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Alfred A. Knopf, 2023.

Blair, Eileen, 1905-1945.

Orwell, George, 1903-1950 -- Marriage.

Authors' spouses -- England -- Biography.

Wives -- England -- Biography.

9780593320686 (hc.)

Alternate title:

Mrs. Orwell's invisible life

1st American ed.

451 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

"At the end of summer 2017, Anna Funder found herself at a moment of peak overload. She needed help, and George Orwell came to her rescue. After rereading and savoring books Orwell had written, she devoured six major biographies tracing his life and work. But then she read about his forgotten wife, and it was a revelation. Eileen O'Shaughnessy married Orwell in 1936. O'Shaughnessy was a writer herself, and her literary brilliance not only shaped Orwell?s work, but her practical common sense saved his life. But why and how, Funder wondered, was she written out of their story? Using newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Funder re-creates the Orwells? marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War in London. As she peeks behind the curtain of Orwell's private life she is led to question what it takes to be a writer and what it is to be a wife."

Anna Funder is the author of 'Stasiland and All That I Am,' and the novella 'The Girl with the Dogs.' 'Stasiland,' hailed as a 'classic', tells true stories of ordinary people who heroically resisted the communist dictatorship of East Germany, and of others who worked for the Stasi. In 2004 'Stasiland' won the UK's premier award for non-fiction, the Samuel Johnson Prize, and was a finalist for many other awards. Anna's novel 'All That I Am' is an homage to four German anti-Hitler activists living bravely but precariously in exile in London in the 1930s. 'All That I Am' won many literary awards including Australia's most prestigious, the Miles Franklin Prize, and was a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. It spent over a year on the bestseller lists, was BBC Book of the Week and Book at Bedtime, and The Times Book of the Month. Both books are international best sellers, published in over twenty-four countries. Originally trained as an international human rights lawyer, Anna is a former DAAD Fellow in Berlin, Australia Council Fellow, and Rockefeller Foundation Fellow. She has lived in Paris, Berlin, and Brooklyn, and now lives in Sydney, Australia.

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