INDIANAPOLIS – Eric Blair, or more commonly known by his pseudonym George Orwell, published his final work, Nineteen Eighty-Four in June 1949.
The novel was his vision of the future. It imagines an authoritarian society with a language called “Newspeak” which was propaganda to control its citizens.
The novel surged to the top of the charts 35 years ago this week when the year 1984 rolled around.
However, it wasn’t the only time sales of the novel surged.
1984 reached number one on Amazon’s best seller list in January 2017, prompting Penguin Books to order a reprint of 75,000copies.
The uptick in sales was attributed to comments made by President Donald Trump’s counselor Kellyanne Conway.
In a television interview, Conway coined the term “alternative facts” which many associated with Orwell’s term “doublethink” in which two contradictory beliefs are both accepted as true.
