To Orwell Today,

Dear Jackie,

I wanted to write and let you know that my company will be staging an approved adaptation of Burmese Days in New York this November.

We are a British based theatre company invited over to open Burmese Days in the Brits Off broadway festival at 59E59 Theatre. This is particularly fitting as Orwell's novel was originally published in the States as UK publishers were afraid of libel.

Anything you can do to promote the show would be gratefully appreciated.

Perhaps you can put me in touch with some Orwell/Burmese Days enthusiasts in NYC?

Here's the link: Burmese Days on Broadway, by Aya Theatre Company

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Kind regards,
Ryan Kiggell

Greetings Ryan,

That's great your theatre company is staging BURMESE DAYS -- congrats!

I loved the book -- as you've probably read in the ORWELL'S BURMESE DAYS section of the website.

Yes, it is fitting that BURMESE DAYS, the play, will be seen for the first time in the USA because, as you say, that's where the book was first published, ie in 1934. The book's characters and setting were so transparently recognizable in England that no publisher would dare take it on at that time.

It's also transparently obvious (once a person's read a few biographies of Orwell) that Flory, the main character in BURMESE DAYS, is Orwell himself -- describing incidents almost verbatim from his five years spent in Burma.

Orwell wrote BURMESE DAYS only a few years after he got back from Burma (while he was teaching school in a suburb of London). Actually, it was the manuscript of BURMESE DAYS that Orwell was delivering -- by motorcycle to his publisher -- when he got caught in pouring rain without a raincoat -- and got pneumonia. After that, Orwell's teaching days were over, and he went to recuperate at his parent's house in Southwald (where he wrote his next book A CLERGYMAN'S DAUGHTER). See ORWELL'S MOTORCYCLE MEMORIES

Hope BURMESE DAYS is a Broadway hit -- and ORWELL TODAY readers in New York City attend.

All the best,
Jackie Jura

ORWELL'S OTHER BOOKS