George Orwell was definitely a prescient person; he had fully-fleshed visions of the world that would come to pass that people of his time could only begin to imagine. Thankfully, we got a chance to talk to him about his world-view, his process of writing and more!
Young Adult: 1984 has become a seminal book. How do you feel about that?
George Orwell: No one sets out to write a “seminal” book as you call it, but you always hope people respond to your work. Given the nature of the tome, it’s a bit concerning how much it resonates.
YA: Where did you get the inspiration to write 1984?
GO: Growing up during a world war changes your outlook to be much more bleak; the sounds of the air raid sirens stayed with me and caused me nightmares for years to come. A lot of the devices in the book stemmed from real world experiences of security measures implemented in the war…filtered through my fractured imagination.
YA: Animal Farm has also become a prominent work. Talk a little bit about that.
GO: I think that one stuck with people because it’s easier to talk about things without directly talking about them. On one level it’s a story about a farm…but clearly it goes much deeper than that.
YA: What is your writing process like?
GO: It’s simple and yet the most difficult thing in the world; write, write, then write some more. Then revise. It really comes down to putting one word in front of another on the page consistently.
YA: What necessities do you need to write?
GO: My typewriter and lots of coffee.
YA: You’ve also had an active career as a radio commentator. How do you navigate both worlds?
GO: I think they lend themselves to sharpening my skills in each arena. The more time I spend refining my ideas on paper the easier it is to talk about them, and the more time I spend talking about certain ideas, the easier it is to write about them.
YA: What advice do you would you give to aspiring writers?
GO: Make sure you can do nothing else before you attempt to make your living writing. It’s a hard life.
YA: Who do you respect that’s writing contemporarily?
GO: I like PJ O’Rourke and Hunter Thompson are very good.
YA: What are you currently reading?
GO: A bunch of books on communist theory; if I’m going to skewer something I have to know what I’m talking about.
YA: What is your favorite movie?
GO: Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights.