Women weren’t the only things on Blair’s mind at this time. In Burma Sahib, Blair is faced with an ongoing battle for self-development. He has ambitions to write, but his day job prevents him from doing so. Theroux describes Blair during this period as divided, with two personalities.

“There was Blair the committed colonialist and policeman, who was arresting people, supervising hangings, and whippings,” he says. “And then the man within, a sensitive person, objecting to everything that he is doing – this second character is the beginnings of the writer who would later become George Orwell.”

In the postscript of Burma Sahib Theroux provides the reader with a brief explanation of how that second character (with a strong moral conscience) evolved and matured. Blair’s return journey from Burma was a turning point. In the summer of 1927, he returned to England, via Marseille and Paris. That September, back in Cornwall, Blair told his parents he was resigning from the Indian Imperial Police.

Blair adopted the pen name Orwell upon the publication of his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933). It recalls his time living in near-extreme poverty and destitution in both cities.

“In Burma Orwell had money, a uniform, power, and authority,” says Theroux. “But when he came home to England, he took a vow of poverty – he never owned a house or a car, and he was poorly paid until the end of his life, when he published Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Orwell died from tuberculosis, aged 46, in 1950.

“Orwell is almost like this St Paul character,” says Theroux. “But his conversion was becoming anti-colonial after serving five years in the colonial service.”

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In one passage from Burma Sahib, the author describes colonial officers boasting about using violence against the local population in the name of “king and country”. Today, Theroux says the “legacy of violence from the British Empire still lingers” across many parts of Asia, in countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Myanmar.

Theroux lived in Singapore for three years. He was shocked by the hangings and the floggings that took place when he was there, which the British introduced to the country. “Orwell was keenly aware that he had participated in violent injustices while living and working in Burma,” says Theroux. “He felt deeply ashamed and felt he had to atone for his actions.”

Like Orwell, Theroux used travel to seek out stories for his own fiction. He was born in 1941 in Medford, Massachusetts into a lower middle-class family with six siblings. In 1963, aged 22, Theroux went to Nyasaland, Africa, where he got a job as a teacher.

“I witnessed British colonialism first hand in Nyasaland, this was shortly before it became the independent republic of Malawi,” says Theroux. “The colonial British clubs there didn’t allow Africans to be members. I was shocked. The civil rights movement started in 1963 in the United States, and I was very alert to the idea of segregation.”

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In early novels, such as Jungle Lovers (1971) and Saint Jack (1973) Theroux fictionalised his own experience living as an adventurous expat. Those books sold poorly, though. By the mid-1970s Theroux found himself living in south-east London. “It was the lowest point in my life,” he remembers. Broke and with a family to feed (including son Louis, who went on to become an author and documentary maker), Theroux had an idea to boost his income: taking an epic train journey across the globe and writing a travel book about the experience. With only a small duffle bag, he took the boat-train to Paris.

“From Paris I went to Istanbul, Turkey, and then onto Tehran, Iran, and towards the Afghan border,” Theroux remembers. “I took some buses and then more trains in Pakistan, India and Burma, eventually ending up in Japan.” Theroux returned to England via the Soviet Union, taking the Trans-Siberian express back to Moscow. From there he made his way to Berlin, and eventually back to London.

The trip took four months. The American writer says he had post-traumatic stress disorder when he got home. Crucially, though, his daring plan worked. The Great Railway Bazaar (1975) sold 1.5 million copies, and in 2015 Theroux was awarded a Royal Medal from the Royal Geographical Society for “the encouragement of geographical discovery through travel writing”.

“You find out about different sides to your character when you travel,” Theroux concludes. “You can become a different person because you become liberated when you are alone and far away from home.”

Burma Sahib is published by Hamish Hamilton at $34.99.

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