"For whom, it suddenly occurred to him to wonder, was he writing this diary?
For the future, for the unborn?
For the first time the magnitude of what he had undertaken came home to him."

ORWELL WROTE TO THE FUTURE

"How could you communicate with the future? It was of its nature impossible.
Either the future would resemble the present,
in which case it would not listen to him:
or it would be different from it,
and his predicament would be meaningless."

To Orwell Today,

Dear Madam,

I am a French scholar currently working on Orwell and I've been following your updates on Motihari which I find very useful for my research on Orwellian "sites of memory".

I had a couple of questions for you and I'd be most grateful if you had the time to reply.

First, I was wondering what prompted you to dedicate so much of your time to Orwell. I imagine that running your site is time-consuming, especially as you update it on such a regular basis with really useful information, so I imagine that GO makes you tick for a number of reasons, and I'd be very interested if you had a bit of time to explain to me what according to you is the relevance and appeal of GO today.

Secondly, I was wondering if you had any data on the number of visits your site receives, on the location of visitors. Do you notice a pattern of interest in terms of the geographical whereabouts of your visitors (Scots? Irish people? English? Europeans? Indians? Elsewhere?)

I also wanted to draw your attention to the conference we organise in Lille in two weeks' time, which you might find interesting. Here is a link to the programme of the 2-day colloquium:

ORWELL, A POLITICAL CONSCIENCE OF THE XXth CENTURY, George Orwell Conference, University of Lille III (19-20 March 2010)

Thank you very much in advance for taking the time to reply to my questions.

All the best,
Philippe Vervaecke
Lecturer in British History
Lille 3 University

Greetings Philippe,

Glad to hear you're following updates on Orwell's birthplace in India. It's long been a hope that there would be a SHRINE TO ORWELL there, and it's exciting about the recently erected ORWELL STATUE IN MOTIHARI.

Yes, I guess it's true that GO does make me tick, although I've never heard it explained that way before. My love and appreciation for him grew and developed over these past ten years of reading almost everything he's written and almost everything written about him. Initially, when I created the website in 2000, it was because of my understanding of the importance of "1984".

I first became aware of "1984" in the early 90s when I recognized "political correctness" as being a form of "thought police" as described in "1984", parts of which were indelibly etched in my memory from reading it in high school way back in the late 60s.

Upon re-reading "1984" I was astounded to discover many more nightmarish parallels to today's world, and that is where the name ORWELL TODAY came from. I divided the book into 45 main themes, and listed them down the left side of the Home Page, as a reference for readers to compare today's events with what Orwell described in "1984".

I recognized "1984" as being a warning to the world from Orwell and it became my mission to help spread his warning through the world-wide-web.

"For whom, it suddenly occurred to him to wonder, was he writing this diary?
For the future, for the unborn?
For the first time the magnitude of what he had undertaken came home to him.
How could you communicate with the future? It was of its nature impossible.
Either the future would resemble the present, in which case it would not listen to him:
or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless."

Thousands of readers daily come to ORWELL TODAY from all over the world, although the majority come from the USA, Canada and England. There are, however, readers from Australia, Europe, Africa, India, South America, China, Russia, Iceland (sorry if I missed anyone). It seems they come across the website when searching for subjects of particular interest to them and discover it that way.

Thanks for sending the info on the George Orwell Conference being held at your university in France. Please let me know how it went - no doubt readers will be interested.

All the best,
Jackie Jura

1.Winston's Diary & WHY ORWELL WROTE 1984

Jackie Jura
~ an independent researcher monitoring local, national and international events ~

email: orwelltoday@gmail.com
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website: www.orwelltoday.com