Posted by Tim Cratchit on October 05, 2001 at 06:47:54:
I have noticed that Zamyatin and Huxley are always cited as predecessors to Orwell, but nobody seems to mention Karin Boye's Kallocain.
I think Kallokain is - as a novel - better and great deal more convincing than 1984.
The depicted society and the central conflict are very similar to those in 1984. Kallokain and 1984 are so strikingly similar, in fact, that one could suspect Orwell of plagiarizing Boye. [I don't believe Kallokain was translated into English in Orwell's lifetime].
Boye was suicidal; she finaly made her mind shortly after completing Kallokain in approx.1941.
Unlike Orwell:), Boye was lesbian and wrote a lot of poetry. (I tried to read some of her verses recently, in english translation, and was pretty disappointed. But Kallokain is first rate).
The english translation is out of print. Swedish version is somewhere on the net...