How a real Big Brother kept an eye on George Orwell

Anonymous Patron writes “George Orwell’s novel 1984 provides a fictional warning of the dangers of a totalitarian society in which the hero, Winston Smith, struggles with the thought police. It now appears that his vision of blanket surveillance in the service of Big Brother was more prescient than even he could have known: a secret Metropolitan police file newly released at the National Archives shows that Orwell was himself the subject of repeated special branch reports for more than 12 years of his life.
Guardian Unlimited Books Has More