Ajay Chowdhury, the inaugural winner of the Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland prize, is a tech entrepreneur and theatre director. His children’s book – Ayesha and the Firefish, was published in 2016 and adapted into a musical which premiered in San Francisco. 
 
 
The Waiter (Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month), was published in 2021, and is the first in his critically-acclaimed crime series about Detective Kamil Rahman, an ex-policeman from Kolkata who has moved to Brick Lane in London. It is being adapted for television by Moonage Pictures.The Cook (Guardian Top Crime Books of the Year) was published in May 2022 to excellent reviews and deals with the issue of homelessness. The third book in the series – The Detective (Sunday Times Top Crime Books of the Year) – is about government surveillance and AI. The Spy (Longlisted Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing), the fourth book, sees Kamil infiltrate a terrorist cell. The Shadow (A Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month) is the latest book in the series.

Ajay Chowdhury

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George Orwell

Volume 14 of The Complete Works of George Orwell 
 
Orwell wrote to his anarchist friend, George Woodcock in December 1942 arguing that 'by working inside an institution like the BBC one can perhaps deodorise it to some extent', and he concluded, 'I consider I have kept our little corner of it fairly clean'. 
 
In addition to the magazine programme, 'Voice', Orwell continued to develop what would now be called an 'open university': broadcasts by distinguished speakers on texts set for Bombay and Calcutta university degrees. He enlisted such speakers as E.M. Forster, T.S. Eliot and Joseph Needham and the broadcasts were backed up by publications printed in India for university students. Classical and Indian music programmes were broadcast; there was regular film criticism and an innovative practical theatre series, 'Let's Act it Ourselves'. 
 
Some of Orwell's scripts, such as that for his 'Imaginary Interview with Jonathan Swift', pose difficult textual problems and these are fully examined and annotated. The script of Eileen Blair's broadcast for the series, 'In Your Kitchen' has been included. Orwell still found time to write a number of reviews, contribute to Partisan Review, and write essays on Hardy, Henry Miller, and Yeats.

Keeping Our Little Corner Clean

1942 - 1943

Volume 15 of The Complete Works of George Orwell 
 
Writing to Philip Rahv on 9 December 1943, Orwell described his time at the BBC as 'two wasted years', yet this volume continues to show how much he achieved. Among the educational series in this period were those devoted to new developments in science, modern English verse, great dramatists, and psychology; there were series, such as 'Books That Changed the World' which included broadcast talks on great books from East and West. Among those who broadcast for Orwell were John Lehmann, V.S. Pritchett and Stephen Spender. Oliver Bell, Director of the British Film Institute, took over film reviewing, and the series of shortened versions of Indian plays continued. 
 
Orwell adapted four 'featurised stories', and broadcast talks on Macbeth and Lady Windermere's Fan. He continued to broadcast to Malaya and wrote and read news commentaries for Indonesia. He wrote over a dozen reviews, several essays, and a long study, 'The Detective Story' printed here for the first time in its original French version and in an English translation. 
 
The volume concludes with two appendices: the devastating report by the Intelligence Officer, Laurence Brander on the ineffectiveness of the BBC's broadcasting service to India; and, Orwell's preparatory notes for 'The Quick &amp; the Dead' and 'The Last Man in Europe'.

Two Wasted Years

1943

Volume 20 of The Complete Works of George Orwell 
 
In 'Reflections on Gandhi', published in January 1949, in which he modified the strictures made in a previous review, Orwell wrote, 'our job is to make life worth living on this earth, which is the only earth we have'. 
 
While a patient at the Cotswold Sanatorium, Cranham, he read the proofs of Nineteen Eighty-Four and wrote five reviews. He began, but did not finish, an article on Evelyn Waugh, made notes for an essay on Conrad, and sketched out a long short-story, 'A Smoking-Room Story'. 
 
The volume includes many unpublished letters, Warburg's report on his visit to Cranham, a clarification of Orwell's public statement on Nineteen Eighty-Four, and a detailed examination, with all the relevant correspondence, of Orwell's relationship with the Information Research Department of the Foreign Office. Two of the last items are a cheerful letter from Nancy Parratt, one of his BBC secretaries, and a letter from Sonia Orwell (whom Orwell had married a few weeks after he was transferred to University College Hospital, London). 
 
The volume concludes with a series of appendices. These print all work in progress; a statement of Orwell's accounts; a list of the 144 books he read in 1949; Orwell's will and final instructions for his literary executors; the names in his address book; those he considered cryptos or fellow-travellers; a list of books he owned and another of his pamphlet collection; an unpublished memoir by Miranda wood; and a note of what happened after Orwell's death on 21 January 1950.

Our Job Is To Make Life Worth Living

Volume 13 of The Complete Works of George Orwell 
 
On 18 August 1941, Orwell joined the BBC's Overseas Service. After a crash training course (the documents for which are reproduced here), he was appointed a Talks Producer responsible for features, talks and commentaries on the war, to be broadcast to India. He wrote at least 220 news commentaries for, and broadcast to, India and occupied Malaya and Indonesia, of which Orwell read fifty-six.. This volume shows that formal censorship was not as great a problem as has been supposed, though it obviously occurred and Orwell's brushes with censors are shown in detail. 
 
Along with Volumes 14 and 15 of the Complete Works, Volume 13 shows the enormous efforts he made to disseminate culture rather than crude propaganda. It is in this volume that the origins of 'Room 101' are to be found; it has examples of his first 'courses' for Indian university student - the forerunner of the Open University; the first issue of his broadcast poetry magazine, 'Voice', and a nubmer of his own broadcasts, including 'The Re-discovery of Europe'. He continued to review, to write essays, and to contribute to Partisan Review and he was still active in the Home Guard.

All Propaganda Is Lies

1941 - 1942

Volume 16 of The Complete Works of George Orwell 
 
Orwell served as Literary Editor of Tribune from 29 November 1943 until he went to Continental Europe as War Correspondent for the Observer and the Manchester Evening News in mid February 1945. He continued to write for Tribune until 4 April 1947, when his eightieth 'As I Please' appeared. This column is now, in this edition, printed without cuts. In these thirteen months Orwell reviewed 86 books and he wrote essays on Twain, Smollett, Thackeray, and The Vicar of Wakefield. It was a period in which several important essays appeared, but perhaps the most intriguing is one that has previously neither been accredited to him nor reprinted: 'Can Socialists Be Happy?', written under the pseudonym, John Freeman. Four 'London Letters' were contributed to Partisan Review. The English People, though not publlished until 1947, is included in this volume. Although this was one of his books that Orwell did not want reprinted, it still reads well.

I Have Tried To Tell The Truth

1943 - 1944

Volume 19 of The Complete Works of George Orwell 
 
Much of 1947 and 1948 was taken up with Orwell's struggle to complete Nineteen Eighty-Four and his fight against illness. He wrote 'Arthur Koestler', 'Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool', and his last contribution to Tribune, his eightieth 'As I Please'. The second half of 1948 was spent at Jura where, by a supreme effort, and often in great pain, he managed to complete Nineteen Eighty-Four. 
 
He was admitted to hospital and continued to work on 'Such, Such Were the Joys'; among the essays he wrote were 'Towards European Unity', 'Profile of Krishna Menon', 'Writers and Leviathan', 'Britain's Left-Wing Press', 'George Gissing', 'Britain's Struggle for Survival: The Labour Government after Three Years', and 'Marx and Russia'; and he continued to review. 
 
Changes made in the course of the production of Orwell's radio version of Animal Farm are listed; his second Literary Notebook is reproduced and his third series of notes for his literary executor. This volume is rich in previously unpublished correspondence and includes Fredric Warburg's and David Farrer's reports on Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell's attempt to secure justice for those unfairly treated is also well illustrated.

It Is What I Think

1947 - 1948

David Lodge

Adrian Ludlow, a novelist with a distinguished reputation and a book on the 'A' level syllabus, is now seeking obscurity in a cottage beneath the Gatwick flight path. His university friend Sam Sharp, who has become a successful screen writer, drops in on the way to Los Angeles, fuming over a vicious profile of himself by Fanny Tarrant, one of the new breed of Rottweiler interviews, in a Sunday newspaper. Together they decide to take revenge on the interviewer, though Adrian is risking what he values most: his privacy. David Lodge's dazzling novella examines with wit and insight the contemporary culture of celebrity and the conflict between the solitary activity of writing and the demands of the media circus. 'Sharp, intelligent, surprising and fun' THE TIMES.

Home Truths: a Novella

Volume 10 of The Complete Works of George Orwell 
 
This volume begins with Orwell's letters home from prep school and the stories, poems and contributions to college publications he wrote at Eton, including the play King Charles II which features in A Clergyman's Daughter as Charles I. The sketches that led to Burmese Days are reprinted, along with articles and essays on poverty, censorship and imperialist exploitation first published in Paris 1928-29. In 1930 the first of his reviews were published, while in 1931 his first important essay, 'A Hanging', appeared. Also included is correspondence dealing with publication of Down and Out in Paris and London and the censorship of Burmese Days, A Clergyman's Daughter and Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Orwell's introduction to Down and Out in Paris and London is included in English and the original French version, and the volume concludes with the research material for The Road to Wigan Pier and an analysis of what Orwell was paid for writing the book.

A Kind Of Compulsion

1903 - 1936

Volume 12 of The Complete Works of George Orwell 
 
For the twenty-month period of this volume, there are reproduced 123 book, 38 theatre, and 43 film reviews. Inside the Whale, Orwell's first collection of essays, and The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius are reprinted here. 
 
Later in that year he gave a series of broadcasts on literary criticism, the texts of which are reproduced. Throughout this period Orwell kept a wartime diary; its entries are here printed chronologically with his reviews, essays, and letters and it is here that Orwell makes the first reference to his wish to live on a Hebridean island. It was in 1941 that Orwell began his series of 'London Letters' for Partisan Review. The volume also includes Orwell's lecture notes for instructing members of his Home Guard platoon.

A Patriot After All

1940-1941

Volume 17 of The Complete Works of George Orwell 
 
On 29 March 1945, Orwell's wife Eileen died, aged 39. Her last, long, very moving letters to her husband are printed here. Less than six months later the novel that she might be said to have nurtured and which gave Orwell world-wide fame, Animal Farm, was published. For a little over three months Orwell worked as a War Correspondent for the Observer and the Manchester Evening News. As well as 74 books specifically reviewed, many others were discussed briefly in essays and in his column 'As I Please'. 'Politics and the English Language', one of Orwell's most important essays, was immediately reprinted for journalists of the Observer and News of the World as a guide to good writing. His defence of P.G. Wodehouse, printed here, was written at a time when Wodehouse was still under a cloud. Essays and articles he wrote for the Observer, Manchester Evening News and Evening Standard are reprinted; correspondence shows he had written the first twelve pages of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Eileen's will and Orwell's first notes for his literary executor are also reproduced. Orwell kept a careful account of what he earned to assist in making his income tax return. Only one such record has survived (for 12 July 1943 to 31 December 1945) and it is reproduced here, fully annotated.

I Belong To The Left

1945

Volume 11 of The Complete Works of George Orwell 
 
These years saw the publication of The Road to Wigan Pier, Homage to Catalonia, and Coming Up for Air. The most important document that has come to light regarding Orwell's Spanish experiences is the deposition charging him and Eileen with espionage and high treason, a charge unknown to them. This is fully analysed and can now be read in the context of the disputes that then divided the Left, well illustrated by the letters and documents printed here, notably his bitter response to Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War. The correspondence includes that with Yvonne Davet, who undertook the translation of Orwell's books into French; George Kopp, Orwell's commandent in Spain; and a number of Eileen's letters; Orwell's 'Diary of Events Leading Up to the War' (2 July - 1 September 1939); his Domestic Diary (9 August 1938 - 29 April 1940), which records in detail his attempts at running a smallholding; his extracts from Daily Worker and News Chronicle reports on the Spanish Civil War; and his Marrakech Notebook with illustrations are reproduced. Many letters not previously published are included, and there is a large number of reviews. This volume also includes a sequence of letters that throws a completely new light on Orwell's personal relationships.

Facing Unpleasant Facts

1937-1939

Volume 18 of The Complete Works of George Orwell 
 
Journalism took a heavy toll on Orwell in the first months of 1946. Despite this unremitting pressure, he produced a major sequence of articles on 'The Intellectual Revolt'. He wrote one of his finest short essays, 'Some Thoughts on the Common Toad'. He reviewed Zamyatin's We, wrote two radio plays for the BBC, The Voyage of the Beagle, and a version of 'Red Riding Hood' for Children's Hour, and a pamphlet for the British Council, British Cookery; these three are printed here for the first time. 
 
The complex history of 'How the Poor Die' is unravelled, as is the problem posed by his passports giving his date of birth incorrectly, something that would prove significant in the writing of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell renewed contact with Yvonne Davet; he corresponded with Ihor Szewczenko; he tried to get Victor Serge's memoirs published in English and, with Arthur Koestler, to expose Soviet responsibility for the massacre of the Poles by arranging for a translation of Joseph Czapski's Souvenirs de Starobielsk to be published. 
 
Despite all this, Orwell did get away to Jura with his son, Richard. He was able to relax and even fish, as his Domestic Diary (published for the first time) shows; and he wrote fifty pages of Nineteen Eighty-Four. This volume includes Orwell's telling letter to Dwight Macdonald on the necessity for people to rid themselves of leaders of a violent revolution before they became entrenched (5 December 1946). This was what the animals of Animal Farm had failed to do.

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