George Salis at The Collidescope:
George Salis: Your latest book is Burma Sahib, a novel about a young Eric Blair (aka George Orwell) in India. What attracted you to this part of Blair’s life?
Paul Theroux: A line in Orwell’s Burmese Days goes this way: “There’s a short period in everyone’s life when his character is fixed forever.” Although Blair (Orwell’s real name) does not appear in that book, nor does anyone resembling him, it struck me that Burma was that period for him, his five years as a policeman. Imagine the culture shock: a schoolboy at Eton one year, and the next year a colonial policeman (aged 19) in the Raj. Afterwards he spent the rest of his life atoning—at first becoming a dishwasher in Paris. I might also add that I could relate somewhat, having started my working life as a teacher in the British territory of Nyasaland—later Malawi.
GS: I’m now thinking of Christopher Hitchens’ book, Why Orwell Matters. Overall, why does Orwell matter to you?
PT: He matters to me in ways greatly different from Hitchens and many others.
More here.