Orienting Orwell: Asian and Global Perspectives on George Orwell

In March 2014, Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies published an Orwell special issue entitled “Orienting Orwell: Asian and Global Perspectives on George Orwell”. The issue was edited by Henk Vynckier, Associate Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan, and honorary researcher in the Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences at the Academia Sinica, and John Rodden, author of The Cambridge Introduction to George Orwell (2012) and Visiting Professor at Tunghai University in 2011-2012.

The issue contains essays by John Rodden (“‘A Hanging’: George Orwell’s Unheralded Literary Breakthrough”), Douglas Kerr (“Orwell and Kipling: Global Visions”), Gita V. Pai (“Orwell’s Reflections on Saint Gandhi”), Angelia Poon (“Against the ‘Uprush of Modern Progress’: Exploring the Dilemma and Dynamics of Modernity in George Orwell’s Burmese Days”) and Te-hsing Shan (“The Reception of George Orwell in Taiwan”). Henk Vynckier also contributed a foreword on “Asia, Your Asia: Reflections on Orwell and Asia” and an interview with John Rodden about his work on Orwell from The Politics of Literary Reputation: The Making and Claiming of ‘St. George’ Orwell (1989) to The Cambridge Introduction to George Orwell (2012).

Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies is an AHCI journal published by the Department of English of National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei. Copies of “Orienting Orwell: Asian and Global Perspectives on George Orwell” (Vol. 40, No. 1) can be ordered from the Department of English; National Taiwan Normal University; 162 Heping East Road, Section 1; Taipei 106, Taiwan (concentric.lit @deps.ntnu.edu.tw) The journal is also posted electronically at http://www.concentric-literature.url.tw/Temporarily/Concentric.htm.