Written by Hungarian author György Dalos, originally published in 1983, this novel begins with the death of Big Brother and reflects an intermediate period between 1984 and a more optimistic future characterized with a decline in orthodoxy of the totalitarian system, struggles of the ensuing powers and the near destruction of the Oceania air force by Eurasia.[2][3]
Significance
Critic Pat Harrington found the novel's emphasis on the Thought Police embracing a kind of "openness" and pressuring Party cliques through public opinion to be a prescient look at what Mikhail Gorbachev was to attempt in the former Soviet Union with glasnost and perestroika.[4] Rather than ruling by fear, the secret police would attempt to control "the public sphere," bringing people to their cause of their own free will.
