Marrakech 2022

In October 2022 Richard Blair visited Marrakech in north Africa, where his father George Orwell had spent the winter of 1938-1939 recovering from his wounds in the Spanish Civil War. Quentin Kopp, Chair of the Orwell Society, and Kevin Carter, a member who was making his second visit, were part of the small group.

The Society was pleased to visit the Librairie Chatr and discover that the books of George Orwell were available to locals and visitors.

Here Richard Blair is handling copies of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, with Kevin Carter standing left.

George Orwell published a rumination, “Marrakech”, in the Christmas 1939 issue of New Writing, in which he considered the state of the country. He also wrote his last pre-war novel Coming Up For Air during his stay.

Would George Orwell have survived the shortages and tribulations of the Second World War if he had not been able to regain his health in Marrakech? Possibly not. Later, several years after war had broken out, Orwell was able to use his knowledge of the country to describe the background to Operation Torch, the Allied liberation of north Africa, to his readers in Tribune.

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Thanks to Quentin Kopp and Kevin Carter for the photographs