George Orwell’s 1984 novel about a dystopian future under an authoritarian regime is back on the best-seller list and is being reprinted decades after it was written as readers grapple with Donald Trump administration’s defense of “alternative facts.”
Orwell’s book, first published back in 1949, features a devious “Big Brother” government that spies on its citizens and forces them into “doublethink,” or simultaneously accepting contradictory versions of the truth.
1984 sales spiked after Kellyanne Conway used the term “alternative facts” on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday during a discussion about the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration. Some commentators denounced her expression as “Orwellian.”
By Monday, the novel by the late British author hit Amazon’s list of top 10 bestsellers, which is updated hourly. On Wednesday, it was No.1.
Responding to the renewed interest, the book’s publisher ordered a significant reprint this week.
“We put through a 75,000 copy reprint this week,” a spokesman from Penguin, the publishing house that owns 1984, told CNN. “That is a substantial reprint and larger than our typical reprint for 1984.” Although the spokesman acknowledged that copies of the book usually spike at the start of a new academic semester, it is rare for 1984 to be reprinted at this scale.
