Welcome to significant others. I'm Liza Powell O'Brien and in this week's episode

we heard the story of George Orwell's first wife, Eileen Blair. Today we're

joined by Sandra Newman, author of the novel Julia, which is a retelling of Orwell's

classic 1984, from the point of view of its main female character.

Sandra, thank you so much for joining us today. Can you start off by telling us how this book came to be?

Yes, so I was actually approached by the Orwell Estate in the person of Bill Hamilton who is the

literary executor of the Orwell Estate and he asked me if I would be interested in writing a book that is 1984 from the point of view of Julia.

And that was it, that was the whole description.

So it could be taking place after the events of 1984 or before the events of 1984 somehow has to do with

1984 but it was very very wide open and the Orwell estate wouldn't be paying me for it I think that's a common

misconception they're not paying me for it then they don't make any money directly from

it because it's not their book because I'm not Orwell but they actually wanted to

control the production of this book. Interesting. So their concern was that

somebody else would write the book with 1984 coming out of copyright in the UK.

Right.

And then it would be some book that they would find, you know, somehow cheapening to Orwell's legacy

or antagonistic to Orwell's legacy

in some way that they felt was bad, I don't know.

And within that, you know, it sounds like they want something

that's going to be like completely,

like Orwell friendly, like completely positive about Orwell and specifically

something that's not going to be too feminist but actually that turned out not

...