Dear Orwell Today,

Your web page about George Orwell has been extremely interesting for me to read.

I would like to say you, that Orwell is a well known English writer and a revolutionary, in Spain because of his fight in the Spanish Civil War in the POUM brigades. Later he wrote one of his most famous books about his instance in this war "Homage to Catalonia". In Spain you can find several articles on Orwell at the web page of the "Fundacion Andreu Nin" (Andreu Nin Foundation). I have joined the web page I refer to about Orwell, in Spanish.

The page is of great interest as this year it offers speacial contributions due to Orwell's centenary. Moreover for this occasion articles and books on Orwell have been published in a great numner of newspapers and magazines, as well as several bools have been edited. Especially the Book "Orwell en Espana"(Orwell in Spain) edited by "Editorial Tusquets" is worth mentioning.

I would like to remark that I found no allusion on your web page as to Eric Blair's attendance ot St. Cyprian School in Eastboune, before studying at Eton.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,
Fdo.: Pedro Erdociain.

Greetings Pedro,

Gracias for your interest in Orwell Today and for linking my website to the Fundacion Andreu Nin website which looks very thorough and informative, although I haven't read it because I don't understand Spanish.

I have read Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell and also many articles and biographies about his experiences in Spain. I can understand why he would be considered a hero in Spain because it was there that he proved his committment to Socialism by fighting alongside the true revolutionaries who were defending what was theirs against the Fascists.

It was in Spain that Orwell witnessed the Communists joining with the Fascists to betray the Socialists and he never forgot it. He wrote articles and sent them back to England but no one would print them. The murder of Andreu Nin, the leader of POUM, and the inprisonment and death of the young Bob Smillie - and thousands of others from all over the world - had a profound effect on Orwell and it changed his life. That's when he first saw how the Communists and the Fascists used propaganda to twist reality into whatever shape they chose.

After Spain Orwell became a political writer and everything he wrote from then on was AGAINST totalitarianism and FOR democratic Socialism. When he couldn't get Homage to Catalonia published by the so-called Socialists in England Orwell realized for once and for all that they were lying when they said they cared about the common man, and that they weren't really Socialists at all.

In the section on my website entitled ORWELL'S OTHER BOOKS I have an excerpt from Homage to Catalonia where Orwell describes how he survived a bullet through the neck. Orwell was amused that everyone kept telling him how lucky he was that he didn't die. On the contrary, he thought he wasn't lucky AT ALL or he wouldn't have been shot in the first place! But in reality it was a miracle that he DID live and the world was then gifted with the great contribution of his writings.

Actually on my website I DO mention Orwell's experience at St Cyprian's in the book I wrote last summer entitled Homage to Orwell (named after, of course, Homage to Catalonia). In the chapter Orwell's Boyhood Home I have a link to boarding school days in Orwell's essay Such, Such Were the Joys which describes his thoughts on the tyranny of headmasters and headmistresses.

In the 70s I lived and worked in Germany and travelled often to Spain - meeting my future husband (an Englishman) in Sitges just south of Barcelona. I wish I had known about George Orwell at that time because I would have gone to the Continental Hotel on the Ramblas and other places Orwell frequented while there. But maybe I'll do that man~ana as you say in Spain.

Adios for now,
Jackie Jura

TOUR ORWELL'S SPANISH TRENCHES

SOLDIER ORWELL AT SPANISH FRONT

ORWELL BULLET THRU NECK

ORWELL BIRTHDAY TYPING CATALONIA

ORWELL & NEW STATESMAN MAGAZINE

ORWELL'S CRYSTAL SPIRIT POEM

SPAIN REMEMBERS ORWELL CENTENNIAL

ORWELL'S UTOPIA ("Democratic Socialism") by Jackie Jura

ORWELL'S PUBLISHING PROBLEMS (from Orwell: Wintry Conscience of a Generation, by Jeffrey Myers), by Jackie Jura