Orwell's 1984 is suddenly a best-seller

GEORGE Orwell's classic book 1984, about a dystopian future where critical thought is suppressed under a totalitarian regime, has seen a surge in sales this month, rising to the top of the Amazon best-seller list in the United States and leading its publisher to have tens of thousands of new copies printed.

Craig Burke, the publicity director at Penguin USA, said that the publisher had ordered 75,000 new copies of the book this week and that it was considering another reprint. "We've seen a big bump in sales," Mr Burke said. He added that the rise "started over the weekend and hit hyperactive" on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. Since Friday, the book has reached a 9,500 per cent increase in sales.

According to him, demand began to lift on Sunday, shortly after the interview that Kellyanne Conway, an adviser to President Donald Trump, gave on NBC's Meet the Press. In defending a false claim by the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, that Mr Trump had attracted the "largest audience ever to witness an inauguration", Ms Conway used a turn of phrase that struck some observers as similar to the dystopian world of 1984.