London, chief city of Airstrip One, the third most populous province of Oceania. It's 1984 and Julia Worthing works as a mechanic fixing the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. Under the ideology of IngSoc and the rule of the Party and its leader Big Brother, Julia is a model citizen - cheerfully cynical, believing in nothing and caring not at all about politics. She knows how to survive in a world of constant surveillance, Thought Police, Newspeak, Doublethink, child spies and the black markets of the prole neighbourhoods. She's very good at staying alive.
But Julia becomes intrigued by a colleague from the Records Department - a mid-level worker of the Outer Party called Winston Smith, she comes to realise that she's losing her grip and can no longer safely navigate her world.
Seventy-five years after Orwell finished writing his iconic novel, Sandra Newman has tackled the world of Big Brother in a truly convincing way, offering a dramatically different, feminist narrative that is true to and stands alongside the original. For the millions of readers who have been brought up with Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, here, finally, is a provocative, vital and utterly satisfying companion novel.
Sandra Newman opens out the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four by looking at that novel's events from a female point of view. From Julia's life in a women's dormitory through her affair with Winston Smith and torture by the Thought Police, on to a meeting with Big Brother himself, it's a fascinating reflection on totalitarianism as refracted through Orwell's times and our own - Guardian
Newman does much more than update Nineteen Eighty-Four, she makes it seem essential reading all over again... exhilarating - The Sunday Times
Newman is a powerful writer and particularly smart on the historical resonances... The violence is sickening, and meant to be. Newman never leaves you alone, never turns off the light, never gives it a rest until, strapped in our chair, we learn the meaning of HARDREAD... it's beautifully done - The Times
Called simply Julia, Newman's novel is so ingenious, sensitive to the original, and above all witty that one can imagine Orwell thoroughly enjoying it - Daily Telegraph
This extraordinary novel is like a newly discovered room in your house, in a dream - the illusion is so precise, the execution so masterful, that you think it must have been there all along, just waiting for you to find it. Sandra Newman has succeeded wildly at the impossible task she was given; JULIA should surprise and delight not only devotees of Orwell's classic, but fans of Newman's own daring, disquieting, and emotionally affecting oeuvre - J. Robert Lennon
A powerful feat of imagination and empathy which breathes new life into Orwell's nightmare - Dorian Lynskey, author of The Ministry of Truth: A Biography of George Orwell's 1984
