Speaker: Anna Funder
Moderater: Jemma Birrell

When Anna Funder turned to her literary hero, George Orwell, for inspiration, she discovered not just that Eileen O’Shaughnessy, his first wife's, contribution had been ignored by his biographers but that Orwell himself had blatantly downplayed both her work and her ideas.

Does his treatment of her make him a monster who, like so many other male literary heroes, deserves condemnation and even cancellation? Funder forensically proves Orwell’s deliberate erasure of his wife. She not only puts O’Shaughnessy back in the story, but in the process comes face to face with the doublethink of patriarchy and how it continues to construct and shape the institution of wifedom?

Presented as part of All About Women 2024
Live-broadcast from The Sydney Opera House

Auslan and Live-Captioned

Duration: approx 60 minutes.
Rental period: 30 days