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Thu 01 Jan 2010An Irishman's Diary
AT THE start of 1950, George Orwell’s reputation was rising faster than any English-language writer of his generation. The novel 1984had been published six months earlier, to huge critical acclaim and commercial success. He was 46, famous, becoming wealthy, and full of ideas for future work. There was only one problem. He was also dying.
His death came 60 years ago today and, in a sense, it was 1984that killed him. He was not destined for old age anyway. When his long-suspected tuberculosis was finally diagnosed in late 1947, he thought the disease “bound to claim me sooner or later”. But he had already completed the first draft of 1984by then, and was now struggling manfully to rewrite it.
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