1984’s New Introduction Is a Missed Opportunity

1984 is back in the news. Orwell’s estate recently authorized a 75th anniversary edition of the timeless classic, with a new introduction by literature professor Dolen Perkins-Valdez. 

Perkins-Valdez’ introduction spends little time talking about authoritarianism, and a lot of time talking about race and gender in the story. She complains about Winston’s misogyny. She bemoans the fact that the story doesn’t focus on matters of race, writing that “a sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me [Perkins-Valdez is black] to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity.”