Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life
by Anna Funder (Knopf, 2023)
audiobook read by Jane Slavin & Arianwen Parkes-Lockwood (Bolinda, 2023)
The reconstructed biography of Eileen O’Shaughnessy, a remarkable woman whom the patriarchal gatekeepers, when not omitting her altogether, render anonymous as merely George Orwell’s wife. Funder confronts the historical record to wrest Eileen’s due back from oblivion. Orwell himself emerges greatly diminished.