Tuesday 25 June 2024 @ 18:00 - 20:00
from £8
University College London
Orwell and his circle: Ariane Bankes and D. J. Taylor in conversation
6pm – 8pm, Tuesday 25th June
Venue: Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre, South Wing, Wilkins Building, University College London
On the day of George Orwell’s birthday, join The Orwell Foundation to celebrate two new books shedding light on Orwell’s life and influential friends. Tickets include a drinks reception from 7.00pm.
Ariane Bankes is the author of The Quality of Love (Duckworth Books, 2024), a join biography of her mother Celia Paget and Celia’s twin Mamaine, whose remarkable lives drew in friends and lovers including including Arthur Koestler, Albert Camus, Sartre and de Beauvoir, and George Orwell. Using a rich archive of letters and diaries, The Quality of Love weaves the story of these captivating and unusually beautiful identical twins who overcame a meagre education to take 1930s London society by storm and move among Europe’s foremost intellectuals during the twentieth century’s most dramatic decades. Above all, it is a sparkling portrait of the deep connection between two spirited sisters.
D.J. Taylor’s writings on Orwell include Orwell: The Life, which won the 2003 Whitbread Prize for Biography, and its successor Orwell: The New Life (2023). His most recent book is Who is Big Brother? A Reader’s Guide to George Orwell (2024). He is the author of 13 novels, including Trespass (1998) and Derby Day (2011), both of which were longlisted for the Booker Prize.
Book event