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- Title
Jean Malaquais: A French Orwell?
- Authors
Rodden, John; Rossi, John
- Abstract
This essay discusses the uncanny parallels, paradoxes, and puzzles in the lives and careers of author of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the famous George Orwell, and the virtually unknown French writer and political radical, Jean Malaquais. The striking affinities between Orwell and Malaquais, both of whom came to literary maturity in the 1930s, involve both their themes and genres. Both men fully engaged the issues of their times as independent leftists. Both also wrote political novels, documentary reportage, war diaries, and anti-utopias that addressed the conditions of the poor and working class (especially miners), the agonies of war-torn Europe, and the dangers of a totalitarian dystopia in the near future. Their remarkable affinities even extended to participation as volunteer soldiers in the same militia during the Spanish Civil War, the POUM (United Marxist Workers' Party). Yet no biographer or scholar has ever compared the two men or even noted their numerous, arresting similarities. The divergent 'afterlives' of Orwell and Malaquais raise large questions about cultural memory, the literary Zeitgeist, and Clio's caprice.
- Subjects
MALAQUAIS, Jean; ORWELL, George, 1903-1950; FRENCH authors; COMPARATIVE studies; POLITICS in literature; 1984 (Book : Orwell); THEMES in American literature; INTERNATIONAL brigades in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939; POLITICAL participation; POLITICAL attitudes
- Publication
Society, 2015, Vol 52, Issue 4, p360
- ISSN
0147-2011
- Publication type
Essay
- DOI
10.1007/s12115-015-9912-4