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Orwell on the Isle of Jura

Orwell's celebrated novel is celebrating 75 years in print but its message is as important as ever.

But it was written in an isolated and beautiful corner of the Isle of Jura as the author, afflicted by the tuberculosis which would soon kill him, sought to escape the noise, smog and damp of London, and get his warning to the world completed before he ran out of time. A retired businessman, he has spent the past few decades minding the legacy of his father, Eric Arthur Blair - known to readers the world over as George Orwell. The book has left us with a rich legacy of words and ideas to describe the power of the state, totalitarianism, the role of technology and what it is to live in a surveillance culture.

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