In the last few years, George Orwell’s writing and thinking have come to seem ever more timely. But they are also much misrepresented. As BBC Radio 4 marks the 70th anniversary of his early death, BBC documentary-maker Phil Tinline takes five words that resonate through Orwell’s work, and tests out what light they can shed on our problems today.

After Winston Smith has been tortured, brainwashed and broken in the Ministry of Love, Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty Four ends: “He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”

In this final programme, Phil traces the common origins of the world Orwell imagined in Nineteen Eighty Four and the ‘thought transformation’ process that the Chinese government is currently applying to hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in ‘vocational training centres’ across Xinjiang.

Series contributors include: Abduweli Ayup, Nick Cohen, David Dwan, Maurice Glasman, Joanna Kavenna, Robert Jay Lifton, Dorian Lynskey, James Millward, Ferdinand Mount, Jean Seaton, Joanne Smith Finley, Timothy Snyder, Mihrigul Tursun

Presenter/ Producer: Phil Tinline Show less