Oneworld signs ‘one-of-a-kind’ biography of Orwell

Oneworld has signed a “one-of-a-kind” biography of George Orwell by Dr Nathan Waddell. 

Editorial director Cecilia Stein bought UK and Commonwealth rights to A Bright Cold Day from Matthew Marland at RCW. It will publish in 2025.  

The synopsis reads: “A Bright Cold Day reveals Orwell as not simply one of the greatest writers of his time, but as someone exceptionally attuned to time itself: how the routines and rhythms of a day reflect our values, affect our moods and change how we think. Working outwards from the small details of Orwell’s sentences and daily habits, to the large-scale shape and implications of his life and career as a whole, A Bright Cold Day will provide vital new ways of thinking about one of the most important figures of the 20th century. Half-eaten bread, daubed with bacon grease, becomes an opportunity for all kinds of intrigues, half-concealed aggressions and revulsions; scatterings of loose tobacco and oversized leather boots conjure memories of damp Parisian garrets and Spanish trenches.” 

Waddell said: “I’m really delighted to be working with Cecilia on A Bright Cold Day, in which I’m going to tell Orwell’s life story in a structurally playful new way. Orwell’s obsessive interest in the minutiae of daily life has always fascinated me, not least because it’s often downplayed by those who prefer to see Orwell as a writer focused on unwieldy socio-political problems.” 

“This is not your typical literary biography. But only Nathan could reimagine Orwell with such passion, ingenuity and flair,” Stein added. 

Dr Waddell is an associate professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham and editor of The Oxford Handbook of George Orwell and The Cambridge Companion to Nineteen Eighty-Four.