Bradley worked for many years managing services for people in prisons, mental health hospitals and those without fixed abode. She currently works in education and holds a first-class degree in English literature, in addition to qualifications in creative writing and teaching. As Kate Bradley, she has published two suspense thrillers. In this highly original take on Orwell's 1984- the Big Brother of all dystopian classics - Bradley weaves a complex and engaging plot around the idea of a female resistance to oppressive overlords. Oppressive and creepy, but with real heart' A. K. TURNER, author of Body Language I think retellings are always going to be around,” says Keetch. “It will ultimately always depend on readers and their appetite for things.” In Oceania, whoever you are, Big Brother is always watching you and trust is a luxury that no one has. Julia is the seemingly perfect example of what women in Oceania should be: dutiful, useful, subservient, meek. But Julia hides a secret. A secret that would lead to her death if it is discovered. For Julia is part of the underground movement called The Sisterhood, whose main goal is to find members of The Brotherhood, the anti-Party vigilante group, and help them to overthrow Big Brother. Only then can everyone be truly free. I wonder if employing the comfort of a story that’s already known as a jumping-off point to explore contemporary ideas makes contemporary debates more accessible,” she adds, “offering readers an easier way in to discussing today’s politics – particularly the politics of being a woman.”

With Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell constructed an unforgettable fictional world, but one riddled with mysteries. Some unanswered questions - does Big Brother really exist? Was Julia working for the Thought Police all along? - feel like strategic ambiguities. Others, such as the operation of the telescreen or details of life in the "prole district", seem more like omissions. Perhaps Orwell decided that they were irrelevant to his mission of explaining the psychology of totalitarianism. Perhaps, because he was desperately ill with tuberculosis, and racing to finish the book between hospitalisations, he simply didn't have the time or energy to plug the gaps. Then again, all novelists have their blind spots and weaknesses, so it's possible that Orwell didn't even register how much he had left unexplained. by George Orwell led readers into the chillingly claustrophobic dystopian world of Oceania and remains to this day one of the most well-known novels. If you're coming to Coles by car, why not take advantage of the 2 hours free parking at Sainsbury's Pioneer Square - just follow the signs for Pioneer Square as you drive into Bicester and park in the multi-storey car park above the supermarket. Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you. You don't need to shop in Sainsbury's to get the free parking! Where to Find Us We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed. For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin.The idea to modernise and free Julia, to make her the woman I believe Oceania would force her to become, wouldn’t let me go. With only a love and respect for Orwell, I became passionate to liberate Julia’s voice, to create a relevance for her in the male-dominated tumult of Orwell’s imagined future. But there is nothing futuristic about what she endures in The Sisterhood – sadly, it is an old tale told by women throughout history and across nations.

Sadly, The Sisterhood failed to provide any further meaningful insight to the world of 1984. By failing to sidestep the imposing shadow of the Orwell work, it struggled to emphasise its own originality or necessity. A former Russian student who spent time in the USSR during the 1980s, Newman brings to Julia her own insights into life under Soviet communism as well as her perspective as a female reader. "There is a lot of expression of real anger towards women in the novel," she says. "To me it was troubling. I've met a lot of people who actually couldn't finish the book or who hated it because of that." Nonetheless, she remains an admirer."One thing that Orwell can't be faulted on is his understanding of the psychology of totalitarianism. I was impressed by that pretty much every time I opened the book. I think that's still true of authoritarian movements now. The shoe still fits." With Proserpine – as with much of her work – Shelley was ahead of her time. Today, feminist retellings of classical mythology from the perspective of minor, sidelined, or adjunct female characters is a booming industry, with Ursula K. Le Quin, Margaret Atwood, Madeline Miller, Pat Barker, Jennifer Saint, Natalie Haynes and many others all putting their stamp on the genre. Readers, it seems, can’t get enough. Authors have taken the same revisionist approach to more recent works. Last year saw the release of The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo and Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor, both of which retell F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby from the perspective of the book’s female principals, Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker. There are currently two feminist retellings of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four in the works (see panel). s Julia gets the spotlight in this reimagining of Orwell’s classic, where she presents as a dutiful Outer Party member, but is working with a small band of rebel women. A heart-pounding look into a secondary character’s legacy'I'm a massive George Orwell fan, obviously, and 1984 didn't need retelling as a standalone book. It's fabulous, I've read it many times. I'm an English teacher, I teach it as well. But I noticed, on the latest reading, that Julia's a very silent character. She hasn't got a surname, for example. It's not clear what she does for a job. But I did become interested in Julia, and during the novel, it's really clear that everybody knows about this mysterious organization, The Brotherhood. So, you don't have to read 1984 to read The Sisterhood as it's about other people who are also looking for The Brotherhood. Obviously, there are tyrannous regimes around the world at the moment, and I think how they land on women is often very different than how they land on men. So, I thought that was why it might be worth having an exploratory look at how it lands on women, how it lands on this quite a silent character, Julia, and just taking one character and then seeing what she was up to.’ Meanwhile, Solomons describes writing Fair Rosaline as “imagining it like a ship, where above the surface you’ve got Romeo and Juliet, and underneath is what I’m writing, but it has to match perfectly”. For Julia is part of the underground movement called The Sisterhood, whose main goal is to find members of The Brotherhood, the anti-Party vigilante group, and help them to overthrow Big Brother. In Oceania, whoever you are, Big Brother is always watching you and trust is a luxury that no one has. Sinister, chilling and heart-breaking, it’s a worthy successor to Orwell’s dystopian classic, allowing readers to explore a new version of Julia’s story'