'This book is an utter triumph and nothing short of a miracle.' Ann Summers

'A truly wonderful biography… Anna Funder has written another brilliant human portrait.'

Clarie Tomalin

'When researching a new book on George Orwell, powerhouse writer Anna Funder noticed an interesting omission—Eileen Orwell, George’s first wife, was curiously absent. The basis of Wifedom is six newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Norah. It incorporates other letters and facts from the Orwells’ lives and Funder’s exquisite imagining of Eileen’s days. By reading between the lines, piecing together letters, clues and mentions in other people’s diaries, and analysing George’s books and biographies, Funder conjures Eileen as intelligent, funny, dry and self-effacing. Through this process, she provides insight into Orwell that other biographers staunchly avoid mentioning: his womanising, his weakness, his cruelty, and his selfishness. Wifedom also includes the author’s reflections and questions about creative expression and the nature of art. What do you do when your favourite author was a misogynist? What does that mean for you as a reader, writer and wife? What are the conditions required to create art? Are you the wife or the writer? Can you ever be both? In its innovation and coherence, it is reminiscent of Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts or Julian Barnes’s The Noise of Time. This intriguing work is a mix of styles and genres, blending academic research, literary reading and philosophical reflection into 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.'

BOOKSELLER + PUBLISHEr

‘Wifedom may seem an old-fashioned word these days. But be assured that Anna Funder – the Australian author of Stasiland, human rights lawyer, decoder of doublethink – gives it a slashing edge. Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life is a brilliant, creative hybrid of life writing, feminist polemic and literary criticism, which upends the way we read.’ Susan Wyndham, The Guardian.

Angela O’Keeffe’s new novel The Sitter begins with ‘the author’ in an apartment in Paris, looking out towards the burnt shell of the Notre Dame Cathedral. She is, ostensibly, researching the life of Marie-Hortense Fiquet, but Hortense, dead these hundred years, seems to have, in some way, taken over the process of writing. Hortense was, of course, better known as the wife of Cézanne. He painted 29 portraits of her, in none of which she smiles.

This is a beautiful small novel, as tightly constructed as any of the portraits.