How would your experience of literature change if you had no sense of smell?
Would you be able to imagine the smell of “boiled cabbage and old rag mats’ from Winston Smith’s apartment in Nineteen Eighty-Four or the “mingled scent of sandalwood, garlic, coconut oil, and jasmine” in concubine Ma Hla May’s hair in Burmese Days?
Orwell’s Nose is a ‘pathological biography’ of Orwell’s work and life by John Sutherland, Professor of English emeritus at University College London, written soon after he lost his sense of smell.
“There are many threads in Orwell’s fiction, but it is interesting to compile what I think of as their smell narratives.” (John Sutherland, the Guardian 2016)
Guardian article by John Sutherland
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