A nice interview in the Atlantic Online with Christopher Hitchens, who has written a book on George Orwell.
I saw the quote below on The Morning News, which is what led me to the article.
“The great point that I try to make is that in fact Orwell isn’t a very great writer. He’s a very honest and courageous writer and he does a lot of work and he does have a certain gift of phrase, there’s no doubt about it. But he’s not in the first rank of writers. And that’s a good thing, because it shows what average, ordinary people can do if they care to, and it abolishes some of the alibis and excuses for people who aren’t brave.”