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