Eric Arthur Blair aka. George Orwell is author of the most
famous novel in 20th century; Animal Farm, and 1984. He was born on June 25, 1903, in Bengal,
India.
His father is a British colonial civil servant in India.
He was educated in England and, after he left Eton, joined the Indian Imperial
Police in Burma, then a British colony. He resigned in 1927 and decided to
become a writer. In 1928, he moved to Paris where lack of success as a writer
forced him into a series of menial jobs. He described his experiences in his
first book, 'Down and Out in Paris and London', published in 1933. He took the
name George Orwell, shortly before its publication. This was followed by his
first novel, 'Burmese Days', in 1934. An anarchist in the late 1920s, by the 1930s he had begun
to consider himself a socialist. In 1936, he was commissioned to write an
account of poverty among unemployed miners in northern England, which resulted
in 'The Road to Wigan Pier' (1937). Late in 1936, Orwell travelled to Spain to
fight for the Republicans against Franco's Nationalists. He was forced to flee
in fear of his life from Soviet-backed communists who were suppressing
revolutionary socialist dissenters. The experience turned him into a lifelong
anti-Stalinist.
Between 1941 and 1943, Orwell worked on propaganda for
the BBC. In 1943, he became literary editor of the Tribune, a weekly left-wing
magazine. By now he was a prolific journalist, writing articles, reviews and
books.
In 1945, Orwell's 'Animal Farm' was published. A
political fable set in a farmyard but based on Stalin's betrayal of the Russian
Revolution, it made Orwell's name and ensured he was financially comfortable
for the first time in his life. 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' was published four years
later. Set in an imaginary totalitarian future, the book made a deep
impression, with its title and many phrases - such as 'Big Brother is watching
you', 'newspeak' and 'doublethink' - entering popular use. By now Orwell's
health was deteriorating and he died of tuberculosis on 21 January 1950.
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