Why Orwell matters

In this critical essay, Christopher Hitchens assesses the life, the achievments, and the myth of the great political writer and participant George Orwell. In his emulative and contrarian style, Hitchens is both admiring and aggressive, sympathetic yet critical, taking true measure of his subject as hero and problem. Answering both the detractors and the false claimants, Hitchens tears down the façade of sainthood erected by hagiographers and rebuts the critics point by point. He examiens Orwell and his perspectives on fascism, empire, feminism, end Englishness, as well as his outlook on America, a country and culture towards which he exhibited much ambivalence.