CBC: "He was a brilliant, eccentric, complicated man; a colonial policeman, a critic and journalist, a dishwasher, a fighter in the Spanish civil war, a teacher and a shopkeeper - and one of the most influential writers of our time. His name was Eric Blair, better known as George Orwell. Who was the man who gave us 'big brother', 'thoughtcrime', 'doublethink', whose name looms so large in this era of mass surveillance? Steve Wadhams delves into recordings he made with the people who knew Orwell from his earliest days to his final moments." Read on

» The Orwell Tapes, Part 1, 2 & 3 (mp3) » More: George Orwell: A tribute

BBC: "What led avowed socialist George Orwell to write a novel beloved of the Right? David Aaronovitch traces how a decade of political chaos shaped Orwell's vision of a totalitarian future. He explores how, after the war, the threat of the new atom bomb played a crucial part in the birth of Nineteen Eighty-Four - and how Orwell coined the term 'cold war' in the process." Listen here

The Road to Nineteen Eighty-Four is a episode from The Real George Orwell