Norman Bissell became principal teacher of history at Braidhurst High School in Motherwell after obtaining an MA (Honours) degree in philosophy and history from the University of Glasgow. He was formerly a member of the Scottish Examination Board history panel and until recently an Area Officer of the Educational Institute of Scotland. His first poetry collection Slate, Sea and Sky features poems written in his native Glasgow and on the Isle of Luing in Argyll, where he now lives. His interest in the need for radical cultural renewal prompted him to found and lead the Open World Poetics group from 1989 until 1999 and to become director of the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics in 2002.

Through a literary lens, Bissell does for Orwell what Johnny Depp did for J.M. Barrie in Finding Neverland. He brings the man most vibrantly alive. Alastair McIntoshBissell fills out and explores more deeply Orwell’s character and his relationships with those around him. It’s a very believable portrayal, digging beneath the surface of a man who could be awkward, opinionated and intransigent in an attempt to see what made him tick. The Herald on Sunday... a truly excellent and compelling novel, one which provides a perceptive insight into the wretchedness experienced by Orwell as he attempted to finish 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' before his life expired. The author has succeeded in transcending the aura surrounding both Barnhill and Orwell himself, in a book that wholly subsumes the reader in those last years of literary and moral anguish… Possibly the best book you'll read this year. The Ileach