Why I Write | the Orwell Foundation

IF YOU MAKE things, if you are an “artist” of whatever stripe, at some point you will be asked—or may ask yourself—“why” you act, sculpt, paint, whatever. In the writing world, this question never seems to get old. In each generation, a few too many people will feel moved to pen an essay called, inevitably, “Why I Write” or “Why Write?” under which

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Perhaps there was an element of envy in what I hoped was mostly a protective instinct towards my students. I was drawn to write about the circumstances of my own life but had always felt it wouldn’t be possible to do that without betraying or upsetting my family. I feared the instincts of a writer might overpower the instincts of a daughter, a sist

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One of the dangers of writing a book about writing is that it might be perceived to be of the how-to variety. This book is not that. A lifetime of writing has left me with one thing: the knowledge of how I do it. Or, to be completely honest, a knowledge of how I have done it. (How I will soon do it has to remain a continual mystery.) God save us fr

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