HOMAGE TO CATALONIA

In 1937, Orwell joined the anti-Fascist militia in Barcelona during Spain’s civil war. A near fatal battlefield bullet, and then finding himself on the wrong side of the factional fighting, forced him back to England, where he expeditiously penned this memoir. Narrator Jeremy Northam delivers the natural pauses in the spare reporting as Orwell recounts the hardship on the front lines. Orwell also critiques the wartime machinations of Stalin and takes the British press to task for reporting from afar. Through Northam we can hear Orwell’s frustration and incredulity with the press’s inaccurate and unabashedly biased reporting. We also hear the voice, experiences, and seeds of inspiration that would later bring forth the classics ANIMAL FARM and 1984. F.T. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2012]