"Down and out in Paris and London - a tramp's diary or a fictinal novel?

In our previous lesson we read an excerpt of Down and Out in Paris and London written by George Orwell in 1933. It is a novel about the rough life of the tramps in London. Considering the time this novel was published I assume the poverty portrayed is due to the post WW1 economical recession. Loads of people in Europe and the United States lost their wages. Banks and businesses got bankrupt and people comsumes less and less. This was both because the crisis at the stock market in New York in 1929 and the general post war economical challenges. Down and Out in Paris and London deal with the consequences of this era in London.Through the eyes of a newly became tramp he explains how it is like living in a lodging house. The tramps eats only a meal a day of toast and margarine.
It is difficult defining what type of genre the story is. Considering George Orwell lived in Paris under sordid conditions while writing it seems to be a bit biograohical. Still, through style of writing and literary devices it appears as more of a short story, rather than a diary or recall. In The New Yorker Ligaya Mishan dwells on how we can categorize Down and Out in London and Paris. According to her article the difficulties of labelling the story is reflected by Orwell’s pickiness about the title. Before publishing it had various titles such as “Days in London and Paris,” “Lady Poverty,” and “Confessions of a Dishwasher” before the publisher and Orwell landed on “Down and Out in Paris and London”
I must say that when I first read the extract of Down and Out in Paris and London I got the impression that I was reading a historical novel. With its litertary devices such as symbols, dialogues and description of events the story appears as a fictional novel. Here is an example of which: “One morning we tried for a job as sandwich men. We went at five to an alley-way behind some offices, but there was already a queue of thirty or forty men waiting, and after two hours, we were told that there was no job for us” At the same time I suppose it is written with a personal view. Orwell writes from a first person narrative point of view. Additionally he resembles the life of the tramps so well and with a curiousity so vivid it feels like a diary. I do not believe Orwell could write such a realistic novel without adding a touch of his personal experience. I therefore conclude that Down and Out in Paris and London ia a fictional novel spiced up with personal experiences.