From Paris to interwar London, George Orwell experiences the depths of poverty and destitution.
He goes hungry for days at a time; works in underground kitchens under appalling conditions for next to nothing; learns how to live, sleep, and smoke on half a crown a day; picks cigarette butts off the pavements; survives on “tea and two slices of bread”; and sleeps on floors, with his shoes for a pillow, on benches, and in homeless shelters.
Together with Paddy, a tramp, and Bozo, a street painter, George Orwell wanders from one lodging house to another through the alleys of London. Meanwhile, alongside Boris, a former Russian captain, he roams the streets of Paris searching for work, pawning even their clothes just to secure a little food.
In this book, first published in 1933, Orwell describes — and personally experiences — the world of society’s outcasts, whose worries and aspirations are pushed aside by the daily struggle for food and shelter.
The author brings to light a largely overlooked social class and, for the first time, gives poverty a human face and voice. Written with wit and biting sharpness, this debut work by Orwell remains strikingly relevant today.
