"Orwell is the most influential political writer of the twentieth century…He gives us a gritty, personal example of how to engage as a writer in politics." -New York Review of Books

"[Orwell] evolved, in his seemingly offhand way, the clearest and most compelling English prose style this century…But of course he was more than just a great writer. We need him today because [of] his passion for the truth." -The Sunday Times (London)

"Had Orwell lived to a full term, he might well have gone on to become the greatest modern literary critic in the language. But he lived more than long enough to make writing about politics a branch of the humanities, setting a standard of civilized response to the intractably complex texture of life." -The New Yorker

"The real reason we read Orwell is because his own fault-line, his fundamental schism, his hybridity, left him exceptionally sensitive to the fissure-which is everywhere apparent-between what ought to be the case and what actually is the case. He says the unsayable." -Financial Times

"Orwell was the conscience of his generation." -V. S. Pritchett