Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life
About this audiobook
Brought to you by Penguin.
A blazing, genre-bending masterpiece from one of the most inventive writers of our time
Looking for wonder and some reprieve from the everyday, Anna Funder slips into the pages of her hero George Orwell. As she watches him create his writing self, she tries to remember her own . . .
When she uncovers his forgotten wife, it's a revelation. Eileen O'Shaughnessy's literary brilliance shaped Orwell's work and her practical nous saved his life. But why - and how - was she written out of the story?
Using newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Funder recreates the Orwells' marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and WW II in London. As she rolls up the screen concealing Orwell's private life she is led to question what it takes to be a writer - and what it is to be a wife.
Compelling and utterly original, Wifedom speaks to the unsung work of women everywhere today, while offering a breathtakingly intimate view of one of the most important literary marriages of the 20th century. It is a book that speaks to our present moment as much as it illuminates the past.
PRAISE FOR ANNA FUNDER
'Funder skilfully deploys fictional techniques to make the material jump off the page: crafted scenes with their own story-arcs, naturalistic dialogue, fully-realised characters with their own plotlines' Independent on Sunday
'Meticulous and compassionate' London Review of Books
'Rigorously researched, tenderly told' Independent
©2023 Anna Funder (P)2023 Penguin Audio
About the author
Anna Funder (Author)
Anna Funder is the author of the international bestsellers Stasiland and All That I Am. In 2004 Stasiland won the Samuel Johnson Prize and, along with All That I Am, has been published in twenty-six countries. All That I Am won the Miles Franklin Award, and was a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. It was also chosen as a BBC Book of the Week and Book at Bedtime.
Anna was originally trained as an international human rights lawyer. She lives in Sydney.
Jane Slavin (Reader)
Jane Slavin is an actress. She lives in London. Writing on the Water is her first novel.