The typescript has a few amendments in Orwell’s hand and at the head of the first page, also in his hand, is written, ‘As broadcast. 10 mins 10 secs.’ The talk was censored by R. C. Hardman and read by Balraj Sahni. Broadcast on the BBC’s Through Eastern Eyes programme on 29 January 1942:...
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The typescript of this broadcast, in the BBC Archives, has written at the top of the first sheet ‘Anon.’ Programmes as Broadcast (PasB) notes: ‘Written by Eric Blair and read by B. Sahni (Members of the Indian Section).’ It ran for 11 1/3 minutes. Broadcast on the BBC’s Through Eastern Eyes programme on 20 January...
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The typescript for this broadcast states that it was written ‘by E. Blair’ and read by I. B. Sarin, Programmes Assistant in the Eastern Service. The script carries a rectangular censor’s stamp. Unlike the later triangular rubber stamps for Security and for Policy, this one bears only the words ‘CENSORED DATE . . ....
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Broadcast talk in the B.B.C.’s Eastern Service, 10 March 1942; printed in The Listener, 19 March 1942; reprinted in Talking to India, 1943. When I was a small boy and was taught history — very badly, of course, as nearly everyone in England is — I used to think of history as a sort...
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A broadcast talk in the B.B.C.’s Overseas Service, 14 May 1941; printed in The Listener, 12 June 1941. I shall start by quoting the poem called “Felix Randal”, by Gerard Manley Hopkins, the well-known English poet — he was a Roman Catholic priest — who died in 1893: Felix Randal the farrier, O is...
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A broadcast talk in the B.B.C.’s Overseas Service; printed in The Listener, 19 June 1941. I said at the beginning of my first talk that this is not a critical age. It is an age of partisanship and not of detachment, an age in which it is especially difficult to see literary merit in...
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A broadcast talk in the B.B.C.’s Overseas Service, 7 May 1941; printed in The Listener, 5 June 1941. Last week I pointed out that art and propaganda are never quite separable, and that what are supposed to be purely aesthetic judgements are always corrupted to some extent by moral or political or religious loyalties....
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A broadcast talk in the B.B.C.’s Overseas Service, 30 April 1941; printed in The Listener, 29 May 1941. I am speaking on literary criticism, and in the world in which we are actually living that is almost as unpromising as speaking about peace. This is not a peaceful age, and it is not a...
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Broadcast in the Home Service of the B.B.C., 6 December 1940; printed in The Listener, 19 December 1940. Discussion between George Orwell and Desmond Hawkins Hawkins: I have always doubted if there is such a thing as proletarian literature — or ever could be. The first question is what people mean by it. What...
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