A De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) history professor is to join Melvyn Bragg to discuss the impact of one of the 20th century's most influential books.
Professor Rob Colls, of DMU's International Centre for Sports History and Culture (ICSHC), will debate George Orwell's Animal Farm on BBC Radio 4's In Our Time on Thursday, 29 September.
Published in 1945, Animal Farm was Orwell’s commentary on Joseph Stalin’s regime in the Soviet Union and the 1917 Russian Revolution. The BBC discussion will touch on the initial response of the publishing industry to the work, and contemporary reviews, as well as its importance today.
Prof Colls has published widely on Orwell, including the acclaimed 2013 biography George Orwell: English Rebel.
He will be joined in the studio by Mary Vincent, of the University of Sheffield and Steven Connor of the University of Cambridge. Prof Colls has worked with Melvyn Bragg on several occasions most recently on the widely-praised
The Matter Of The North.A BBC spokesperson said: “At first, London publishers did not want to touch Orwell’s work out of sympathy for the USSR, an ally of Britain in WW2, but the Cold War gave it a new audience and Animal Farm became a commercial as well as a critical success.”
Listen to In Our Time on Thursday, 29 September at 9am and 930pm.
RELATED NEWS:*
Book on to a DMU Open Day*
History professor on major new BBC Radio 4 series*
Old Trafford star Park chooses DMU to study management
Posted on Monday 26 September 2016