Wifedom

A marvelous book . . . I just loved it all, and have a permanently marked-up, dog-eared copy on my shelf for the next generation. * Tom Hanks *
Simply, a masterpiece. Here, Anna Funder not only re-makes the art of biography, she resurrects a woman in full. -- Geraldine Brooks, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Truly wonderful... Anna Funder has written another brilliant human portrait. -- Claire Tomalin
Electrifying... Daring in both form and content, Funder's book is a nuanced, sophisticated literary achievement * Kirkus *
A strikingly original study that casts Orwell in new light. Deeply perceptive, it is testament to forgotten wives of famous men everywhere. * Julia Boyd *
Furious and fascinating * The Times *
Astonishing... Wifedom is no less than the rescue of a remarkable woman from the deliberate ellipses of default male history. -- Caroline Criado-Perez, bestselling author of INVISIBLE WOMEN
Taylor's updated life will send readers back to Orwell's compelling visions of state power and surveillance with fresh appreciation. Still, it is Funder's evocation of Eileen's fugitive life that haunts this reader's imagination. It is a spellbinding achievement * FT *
An utter triumph, and nothing short of a miracle * Anne Summers *
Wonderful, unexpected and exciting from beginning to end * Antonia Fraser *
Astounding... A profoundly essential, significant and groundbreaking work... a work of love for both Eric and Eileen * Bernadette Brennan *
An extraordinary blend of forensic historical detective work and evocative fiction, as well as snatches of memoir. It not only writes O'Shaughnessy back into the story but also questions how far we've really come in terms of gender equality. To read about O'Shaughnessy is to fall in love with her * Radio Times *
Reminiscent of Erik Larson's In the Garden of Beasts or Julian Barnes's The Noise of Time . . . a riveting biography that not only rediscovers Eileen and paints a picture of a volatile period of history but also poses questions about what we value in art. * Books & Publishing *
A tremendous book written with such brilliance, honesty, humour and wisdom. I loved the hybrid writing throughout and the way Funder weaves the personal and the political and the literary to bring Eileen to life, filling in the gaps that history, which is often his-story, has systematically forgotten. -- Elif Shafak * Guardian *
A bravura analysis of female invisibility -- New York Times Notable Books of 2023
A brilliant hybrid of biography, memoir and literary detective work, which demonstrates how patriarchy allows men to exploit women's unpaid services. Funder brings Eileen to life through her letters, supported by forensic re-reading of male-authored biographies and Orwell's classics about tyranny and truth. -- Sarah Wyndham * Guardian *
A moving biography with the pacing of a novel. * Times Summer Reads *
Full of keen psychological insight and eloquent prose, WIFEDOM shines * Publishers Weekly *
Wifedom is both an immovable and an irresistible book, an object and a force . . . another great and important narrative of oppression and covert suppression. -- Michael Hofman * Australian Book Review *
Funder, author of Stasiland, her prizewinning account of the East German secret police, takes six letters written by Eileen O’Shaughnessy, George Orwell’s first wife, as the imaginative springboard for a deep dive into their relationship and her impact on his writing and legacy. A haunting, tragic and revealing book -- Financial Times, Best Books of 2023
It's hard to think of many other contemporary writers with such an acute eye for writing into the absences in the historical record. -- Michael Williams * Saturday Paper *
Anna Funder’s brilliant meditation of the life of George Orwell’s wife Eileen O’Shaughnessy. . . [is] a furious, fascinating and all-too-current exposure of the inner life of the patriarchy. -- Fintan O'Toole * New Statesman Books of the Year 2024 *
George Orwell's first wife emerges vividly from Anna Funder's new book . . . welcome and necessary, returning life to a woman who was gifted, vivid, complex and highly intelligent, who gave up her own ambitions in the furtherance of her husband's -- Geordie Williamson * Weekend Australian *
Funder is the perfect writer to integrate Orwell's legacy. She, too, has devoted her writing life to the subject of surviving tyranny. * The Conversation *
'Anna Funder is a premier-league writer who can roll fiction, reportage, criticism and memoir into glinting prose, her sentences like handheld treasures you keep turning over, admiring for their graceful contours and crafted precision' * i Newspaper *
Audaciously brilliant * Independent *
A genre-bending tour de force... After Funder, we will never look at this writer or his work in the same way again. Nor should we. * Independent *
This study of George Orwell’s first wife, Eileen – whom his books never name – is fresh, original and immersive, thanks to the award-winning author of Stasiland. * Daily Telegraph 50 Best Books of the Year *
Electrifying... a genre-melding hybrid that allows Eileen's likeness to be partially recovered through her own words and the testimonies of those who remembered her, as well as reimagined in fictional passages to flesh out the gaps in the record... Wifedom is a vital portrait of a woman whose unseen work was instrumental in the creation of books that became cornerstones of 20th century literature, the extent of her contribution impossible to measure, obscured as it is by the role of "wife" * Observer *
In this rattlingly fierce book, Anna Funder sets out to unmask the "wicked magic trick" by which Eileen O'Shaughnessy Blair has been made to disappear... readers will be simply thrilled - and shaken - by this passionately partisan act of literary reparation * Sunday Times *