FIRST FRIDAY BOOK CLUB | WIFEDOM, by Anna Funder

Join The Friends for another lively First Friday Book Club.

Melding memoir, fiction and fact, in Wifedom, the Australian author,  Anna Funder, looks at George Orwell's wife, Eileen O'Shaughnessy, whose achievements and contributions have been largely ignored in the six major biographies of the renowned novelist. Six letters from Eileen to a best friend, Norah Myles, discovered in 2005, reveal her identity, allowing Funder to give Eileen a voice, and a role, in Orwell's writing. Using these newly discovered letters, Funder recreates the Orwells’ marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and WW II in London. As she rolls up the screen concealing Orwell’s private life, she is led to question what it takes to be a writer – and what it is to be a wife.

Anna Funder, Wifedom, Penguin Books, 2023

Image: amazon.com.au