This is a powerful, honest piece in which Orwell brilliantly gets at the complex human experience of living and ruling in a strange land. It’s a deeply compelling read that is also deeply political. It is also disturbingly graphic—not in some horror-movie way, but in a more mundane, clear-eyed, truth-telling way. This piece shows the power of using the self as a character and the power of vivid, telling detail.
Read “Shooting an Elephant,” by George Orwell