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Stoke Newington Literary Festival

Dorian Lynsky

Dorian Lynsky Book

Dorian Lynsky

The Ministry of Truth: A biography of George Orwell’s 1984 (1984-Anniversary)

Dorian Lynskey has been writing about music, film, and politics for more than twenty years
for publications including The Guardian, The Observer, GQ, Q, Empire, Billboard, and The
New Statesman. His first book, 33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs
(Ecco), was published in 2011.

1984 isn’t just a novel; it’s a key to understanding the modern world. George Orwell’s final
work is a treasure chest of ideas and memes– Big Brother, the Thought Police, Doublethink,
Newspeak, 2+2=5– that gain potency with every year. Particularly in 2016, when the
election of Donald Trump made it a bestseller (‘Ministry of Alternative Facts’, anyone?). Its
influence has morphed endlessly into novels (The Handmaid’s Tale), films (Brazil), television shows (V for Vendetta), rock albums (Diamond Dogs), commercials (Apple), even reality TV (Big Brother).

The Ministry of Truth by Dorian Lynskey is the first book that fully examines the epochal and
a cultural event that is 1984 in all its aspects: its roots in the utopian and dystopian literature
that preceded it; the personal experiences in wartime Britain that Orwell drew on as he struggled to finish his masterpiece in his dying days; and the political and cultural phenomena
that the novel ignited at once upon publication and that far from subsiding, have only grown
over the decades. It explains how fiction history informs fiction and how fiction explains
history.

  • Our other speakers: 
  • Briony Bax
  • Jo Neary
  • Paul Burston
  • Ed Miliband
  • Greta Bellamacina
  • Michael Goldfarb
  • Ken Worpole
  • Geoff Nicholson
  • Daniel Trilling
  • Natasha Carthew
  • Martin Rowson
  • Valerie Brandes
  • Crystal Mahey-Morgan
  • Jan Noble
  • Nikesh Shukla
  • Rosie Price
  • Will Wiles
  • Robert Montgomery
  • Stephen Morris
  • Ken Worpole
  • Sue Quinn
  • Ryann Donnelly
  • Sophie Parkin
  • Olia Hercules
  • Nadia Shireen
  • Sean Longden
  • Sophie Naufal
  • Joe Kerr
  • Lauren Laverne
  • Caroline Rosie Dent
  • Diana Henry
  • Travis Elborourgh
  • Michael Bravo
  • Dorian Lynsky
  • Fernando Sdrigotti
  • Georgina Pringle
  • Joel Golby
  • Sali Hughes
  • Kit Caless
  • Coco Khan
  • Dina Nayeri
  • Suzi Feay
  • Jessica Martin
  • Amir Dotan
  • Roger Robinson
  • Kirsten Norrie
  • Julius Beltrame
  • Neil Denny
  • Karen Liebenguth
  • Paul Scraton
  • Torcuil Crichton
  • Lara Maiklem
  • Richard Boon
  • Mariam Khan
  • Gareth E. Rees
  • Niall McDevitt
  • Jamie Lee
  • Natasha Carthew
  • Michele Kirsch
  • Andy Miller
  • Nigella Lawson
  • Ana Seferović
  • John Osborne
  • Robyn Travis
  • Saima Mir
  • Kostya Tsolákis
  • Claire Armitstead
  • Francesca Segal
  • Ben Moor
  • Kiare Ladner
  • Zawe Ashton
  • Caroline Bobby
  • Lynn Enright
  • Joel Morris & Jason Hazeley
  • Sav Akyuz
  • Joe Haddow
  • Nicola Kent
  • Sheila Dillon
  • John Hegley
  • Julia Bueno
  • Patrice Lawrence
  • Tom Huddleston
  • Debora Robertson
  • Sophie Parkin
  • Isobel Galleymore
  • Felicity Cloake
  • Lee Jackson
  • Alex Jackson
  • Elizabeth Macneal
  • Mazin Saleem
  • Nick Thorpe
  • Nadia Valman
  • Jude Rogers
  • Suzanne Noble
  • Emanuelle Dirix
  • Francesca Cassini
  • Tim Wells
  • Yasmin Khan
  • Jenny Linford
  • Alice Lascelles
  • Magdalene Forés
  • Alex Clark
  • Louie Stowell
  • Wendy Jones
  • Anna Birch
  • Anita Sethi
  • Shiromi Pinto
  • Eloise Millar
  • Alan Johnson
  • Pete Brown
  • Jean McNeil
  • Anthony Cartwright
  • Ashley Hickson-Lovence
  • Catherine Steadman
  • Niki Segnit
  • Johny Pitts
  • Alissa Timoshkina
  • Dan O’Brien
  • Bruno Vincent
  • Thurston Moore
  • Golnoosh Nour
  • Serena Constance
  • Jeremy Reed
  • Henny Beaumont
  • Jody Porter
  • Zia Ahmed
  • Xanthi Barker
  • Kerry Hudson
  • Rachel McCormack
  • Melanie McGrath
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