Masha Karp
'Orwell and Russia'
Friday, 21 September, 4:30 pm
Project Room, 50 George Square
The author of the first Russian biography of George Orwell will discuss why it is useful to look at Orwell through a Russian lens. Orwell never visited Russia, but he devoted most of his adult life to thinking about the country. The talk will address Orwell's perception of socialism and the Soviet Union, his sources of information about the Soviet regime, how Nineteen Eighty-Four was received in the USSR, and why Orwell is so popular in modern Russia, where his dystopia was once again a bestseller in 2017.
Masha Karp is a Committee Member of the Orwell Society and the Editor of its Journal, as well as a translator of English and German poetry and prose, including Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, Dylan Thomas, W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Jennings, Alice Munro, Andreas Griffius and Nicolaus Lenau. She is also a journalist with a special interest in relations between Russia and the West. Her articles have been published by The Independent, Standpoint, The Spectator, Open Democracy, and Common Review. Masha was Russian Features editor (1997-2009) and producer (1991-1997) with the BBC Russian Service, as well as a producer and presenter on Radio 4 and BBC World Service radio programmes. She is a member of the St Petersburg Writers' Union and the Literary Translators Guild in Russia.