George Orwell

George Orwell (1903–1950), whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair, is one of the most important English writers of the 20th century.

Born in India in 1903, he grew up in England in modest circumstances. After studying at Eton, he served in the Imperial Police in Burma, an experience that left a deep impression on him. Upon returning to Europe, he chose to live in poverty (Down and Out in Paris and London, 1933) and fought alongside the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. He rose to fame with two masterpieces: Animal Farm (1945), a satirical fable on totalitarianism; and 1984 (1949), a visionary dystopian novel on surveillance, propaganda, and oppression.

A libertarian socialist and fierce opponent of all forms of totalitarianism, Orwell was a master of clarity and intellectual honesty. He died of tuberculosis at the age of just 46, leaving behind a body of work that remains strikingly relevant today.
A major influence on world literature and political thought.

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George Orwell holds a unique place in contemporary English literature. He used facts and his own observation and when there was no actual reporting to be done, invention took over, as in Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, and his clear vision, realistic deduction and profound understanding of human behaviour enabled him to reach the inner recesses of the reader's mind and startle him to reflection and self-examination. He said that one of his motives for writing was a 'desire to see things as they are, to find true facts and store them up for the use of posterity...

In a peaceful age I might have written ornate or merely descriptive books... When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself "I am going to produce a work of art." I write it because there is some lie I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial intention is to get a hearing.'

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