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At a time when our institutions, and our children, are under attack, this newsletter sheds light on the challenges we face, and seeks to start a conversation about how to channel hope, humor and individual strength to overcome them.
I named this blog Made Orwell Fiction Again because George Orwell, a British author, penned a novel called 1984. Written after World War II, his book predicted a world of government tyranny and censorship — where the Ministry of Truth is responsible for propaganda and for rewriting history, so familiar in our own times.
I’m a former journalist — for nearly 30 years I covered the White House, Congress and State Department for USA Today and the Los Angeles Times. When journalism adopted an agenda, I went back to school to earn a PhD in history. As a historian, I wrote two books on women. My favorite Gilded Suffragists: The New York Socialites Who Fought for Women’s Right to Vote. My latest book combines my love of history and of narrative writing. The Concert is based on a true story of what happened during World War II when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union and subjected the city of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) to a siege of 872 days in which the city's three million residents were robbed of food, electricity, heat and dignity. Amid this inhumane treatment. a group of musicians banded together, many starving themselves, to perform a concert that lifted the city’s morale. The novel is told through the eyes of Olga Berggolts, a poet who meets often with her circle of female artists, dancers and writers to chronicle the war. and its lessons. Their conversations about the twin horrors of fascism and communism thread the book with a political commentary relevant in our own times.
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