The Sisterhood: Big Brother is watching. But they won't see her coming.

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Mark Forrest opened the interview by asking Katherine Bradley about how her novel, The Sisterhood, differs from its inspiration, George Orwell’s 1984: ‘There are familiar names in this book, Big Brother, Winston Smith, Ministry of Truth, and Julia, of course, who sits at the centre of this novel. There are many references to Orwell’s 1984. What have you taken? and at what point have you diverged in the story?’ In this highly original take on Orwell's 1984- the Big Brother of all dystopian classics - Bradley weaves a complex and engaging plot around the idea of a female resistance to oppressive overlords. Oppressive and creepy, but with real heart' A. K. TURNER, author of Body Language The idea to modernise and free Julia, to make her the woman I believe Oceania would force her to become, wouldn’t let me go. With only a love and respect for Orwell, I became passionate to liberate Julia’s voice, to create a relevance for her in the male-dominated tumult of Orwell’s imagined future. But there is nothing futuristic about what she endures in The Sisterhood – sadly, it is an old tale told by women throughout history and across nations. If the lukewarm reaction to Shelley’s retelling suggests that society in her day was not yet ready for those minor female characters to take centre stage, then what does the current enthusiasm for reassessment imply?

Julia thinks that she has identified a member of The Brotherhood. Yet the closer she gets to Winston Smith the more Julia’s past catches up with her. No further details to avoid spoilers. Julia is removed from the girlfriend space of 1984 to become a Handmaid’s Tale-style guerilla superspy. Instead of Orwell’s fake Brotherhood there is instead a real Sisterhood of women freedom fighters, and just to let you know Julia means business the novel opens with her thinking about smothering her father to death with a pillow. It’s probably not meant to be funny but it’s pretty funny. “Part of me watches with horror, challenging me: you won’t really do this, will you? Yes, I tell myself. I will.” She’s gonna burn down the patriarchy, just like it was her dad. (The dad is a metaphor.) Sinister, chilling and heart-breaking, it’s a worthy successor to Orwell’s dystopian classic, allowing readers to explore a new version of Julia’s story' In 1820, Mary Shelley completed work on a verse drama titled Proserpine. Her play was based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and told the story of the abduction and imprisonment of Proserpine by Pluto, the god of the underworld. Shelley retold the story from the point of view of Proserpine’s mother Ceres, endowing the women in her play with voice and agency, and excising almost all the male characters from the text. Authors have taken the same revisionist approach to more recent works. Last year saw the release of The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo and Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor, both of which retell F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby from the perspective of the book’s female principals, Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker. There are currently two feminist retellings of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four in the works (see panel).

Katherine Bradley has delivered a worthy counterpart to George Orwell's 1984 in this chilling, taut book. It's as claustrophobic as it needs to be; particularly frightening as one looks around and sees that we are voluntarily moving towards Orwell's nightmare. It is nothing short of a triumph' MARA TIMON This is a story about love, about family, about being a woman, a mother, a sister, a friend and ultimately about what you would sacrifice for the greater good. When Shelley submitted the play for publication in 1824, it was rejected. An abridged version was published in 1832 to little fanfare. The complete drama remained unpublished until 1922, when it was released to commemorate the centennial year of her husband’s death, on account of the fact that Percy Bysshe Shelley had contributed two lyric poems to the project. (The publisher, A.H. Koszul, found little value in Proserpine, save for those two lyric poems and noted that, “this little monument of his wife’s collaboration may take its modest place among the tributes which will be paid to his memory”.)

Frightening and timely, Bradley's The Sisterhood is the book everyone should read this year. If you thought it ended with Orwell, think again . . .' CHRISTINA DALCHER But nowhere have these kinds of stories been more fully explored than in literature, where the impulse to reinvent old characters and reimagine old plots can be seen across almost every genre and aimed at every kind of readership. Commonly hinged on the big players of the Western canon – classical mythology, European fairytales, Shakespeare, the Bible – a steady stream of retellings have allowed readers to experience familiar tales in new lights. In Oceania, whoever you are, Big Brother is always watching you and trust is a luxury that no one has. Julia is the seemingly perfect example of what women in Oceania should be: dutiful, useful, subservient, meek. But Julia hides a secret. A secret that would lead to her death if it is discovered. For Julia is part of the underground movement called The Sisterhood, whose main goal is to find members of The Brotherhood, the anti-Party vigilante group, and help them to overthrow Big Brother. Only then can everyone be truly free. Taking an powerful, iconic and well known existing book and writing a before, after, sideways or alternative version is always a venture fraught with pitfalls. And one which rarely succeeds, as the long shadow and presence of the original often overpowers the later venture.It has been wonderful to see the increasing wealth of retellings, especially the diversity in stories from other cultures including Chinese, Indian, Middle Eastern, Korean and Japanese,” she adds. “I believe we are far from a saturation point, if it even exists. There is so much possibility, particularly for diverse retellings, those based on stories that might be lesser known beyond their country but hold as much magic and wonder.” Overall, I found ‘The Sisterhood’ an engaging read and feel that with it Katherine Bradley has created a worthy companion to ‘1984’ that honours the original yet is willing to expand on the source material to both explore the experiences of women in the society and to propose how change might come about. Detractors of retellings might argue that there is an unoriginality about them, but writers point out that myths and legends stem from a culture of oral storytelling, where tales were told over and over, each iteration bringing something new.

For Julia is part of the underground movement called The Sisterhood, whose main goal is to find members of The Brotherhood, the anti-Party vigilante group, and help them to overthrow Big Brother.Only very occasionally does the alternative version prove to have its own titanic stature, able to take wing.

Armstrong said: "I was blown away by Katherine’s initial pitch for The Sisterhood. As an English teacher, she has taught 1984 for many years and knows the text intimately, so it has been so exciting to see her take that initial story and reimagine it in the way she has. Here Katherine has given Julia full agency and created a history and emotional depth to a character that was merely a bit part player in the original story. This is a story about love, about family, about being a woman, a mother, a sister, a friend, but ultimately, it’s about what you would sacrifice for the greater good. This is perfect for fans of Christine Dalcher’s Vox and The Handmaid’s Tale, and I am incredibly excited about publishing in March with our stunning cover."Julia is the seemingly perfect example of what women in Oceania should be: dutiful, useful, subservient, meek. A dazzling retelling of the classic dystopian novel, which raises profound questions about how society works, and whether or not woman have political agency. I found it memorable, deeply moving, and at times, terrifying' KATE RHODES, author of the Ben Kitto series This dazzling novel opens with a gripping premise and then just gets better and better. It is Julia’s story re-imagined from Orwell’s classic 1984, told in her voice. We not only get to hear her side of the story but learn fascinating details of how her nightmare world evolved from ours. The pace increases and the reveals keep coming, and I loved the twists which took Orwell’s vision even further but also brought clarity and explanations. I don’t want to give spoilers but there were so many moments when I went ‘I understand now!’ throughout this novel. At times it’s heart-breakingly sad as we learn how the narrator became Julia, what she endured and ultimately what she lost. The Sisterhood is told from the perspective of Julia, the main female character in 1984. "While on the outside, Julia seems to be the perfect example of what women in Oceania should be – dutiful, useful, subservient, meek – inside she hides a secret," the synopsis reads. "A secret that would lead to her death if discovered. For Julia is part of the underground movement called The Sisterhood, whose main goal is to find members of the Brotherhood, the anti-party vigilante group, and help them to overthrow Big Brother. When Julia thinks she’s found a potential member of the Brotherhood in co-worker Winston Smith, it seems like their goal might finally be in their grasp.