George Orwell
George Orwell, penname of Eric Blair (1903-50). British novelist and writer. Born in India, he was educated at Eton and served with the police in Burma for five years. His determination to reject his privileged background and experience poverty inspired his early books Down and Out in Paris and London (1933) and The Road to Wigan Pier (1937). While fighting for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War he developed a hatred for communist totalitarianism, -which he attacks in the allegorical tale Animal Farm (1945). Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) paints a horrific picture of a future state dominated by ‘Big Brother’ and reflects Orwell’s mistrust of all political dogma. He died of tuberculosis.
