MCLC: Orwell in China

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Orwell in China
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List members might be interested in the following, from The Asia-Pacific
Journal. Follow the link for the whole essay.

Kirk 

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Source: The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 23, No. 2 (June 9, 2014):
http://japanfocus.org/-Michael-Rank/4127

Orwell in China: Big Brother in every bookshop
By Michael Rank

As I was researching Nineteen Eighty-four in Chinese, I wondered whether
Orwell ever wrote about China. His interest in India, where he was born in
1903, is well known, and he served in the Burma Police after leaving
school and before becoming a writer, but my guess was that China didn’t
concern him greatly. But when I went to the British Library to check in
his massive, 20-volume Complete Works [CW], I was surprised to discover
that he wrote quite a lot about China and its fate under Japanese
occupation, in particular when he was working for the BBC’s Eastern
Service during World War II.

And of direct relevance to this article, it turns out that he asked his
publishers to send a copy of Nineteen Eighty-four to his colleague, the
literary critic William Empson in Peking, where he was teaching English
literature. When he was seriously ill in a sanatorium in Gloucestershire
in 1949, Orwell wrote to his agent Leonard Moore: “William Empson in China
has asked for a copy of 1984 [sic]. I think it might be wise to get two
copies sent, one from London and one from New York. He already seems
uncertain as to whether his letters are being opened, so could you ask
both publishers not to enclose the usual card saying ‘Compliments of the
Author’, as this might just conceivably be embarrassing to him.” Helpfully
he gave Empson’s address as 11, Tung Kao Fang, Near Peking Normal
University, Peiping 9, China (30 August 1949, CW, vol 20, p 162)

. . . .