Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays - Softcover

Orwell, George

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156033135 ISBN 13: 9780156033138

Publisher: Mariner Books, 2009

Synopsis

George Orwell was first and foremost an essayist, producing throughout his life an extraordinary array of short nonfiction that reflected--and illuminated--the fraught times in which he lived. "As soon as he began to write something," comments George Packer in his foreword, "it was as natural for Orwell to propose, generalize, qualify, argue, judge--in short, to think--as it was for Yeats to versify or Dickens to invent."

Facing Unpleasant Facts charts Orwell's development as a master of the narrative-essay form and unites such classics as "Shooting an Elephant" with lesser-known journalism and passages from his wartime diary. Whether detailing the horrors of Orwell's boyhood in an English boarding school or bringing to life the sights, sounds, and smells of the Spanish Civil War, these essays weave together the personal and the political in an unmistakable style that is at once plainspoken and brilliantly complex.

About this title

Book Description

HMH Hardcover, 2008, Previous ISBN: 978-0-15-101361-6

From the Back Cover

The essential collection of narrative essays from a 20th century master

George Orwell was first and foremost an essayist, producing throughout his life an extraordinary array of short nonfiction that reflected--and illuminated--the fraught times in which he lived. "As soon as he began to write something," comments George Packer in his foreword, "it was as natural for Orwell to propose, generalize, qualify, argue, judge--in short, to think--as it was for Yeats to versify or Dickens to invent."

Facing Unpleasant Facts charts Orwell's development as a master of the narrative-essay form and unites such classics as "Shooting an Elephant" with lesser-known journalism and passages from his wartime diary. Whether detailing the horrors of Orwell's boyhood in an English boarding school or bringing to life the sights, sounds, and smells of the Spanish Civil War, these essays weave together the personal and the political in an unmistakable style that is at once plainspoken and brilliantly complex.

"Reaffirm[s] the author's status as one of the definitive essayists in English literature."--Los Angeles Times

GEORGE ORWELL (1903 1950) served with the Imperial Police in Burma, fought with the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, and was a member of the Home Guard and a writer for the BBC during World War II. He is the author of many works of nonfiction and fiction.

GEORGE PACKERis a staff writer for the New Yorker and author of The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq and other works. He lives in Brooklyn.

Also in this series: All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays

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About this edition

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0156033135
• ISBN 13: 9780156033138
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336