By now Orwell's health was deteriorating and he died of tuberculosis on 21 January 1950.Nineteen Eighty-Four is probably the most famous novel about totalitarianism, and about the dangers of allowing a one-party state where democracy, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, and even freedom of thought are all outlawed. 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.

'Nineteen Eighty-Four' was published four years later.

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. In 1945, Orwell's 'Animal Farm' was published. By now he was a prolific journalist, writing articles, reviews and books. In 1943, he became literary editor of the Tribune, a weekly left-wing magazine. The experience turned him into a lifelong anti-Stalinist.īetween 19, Orwell worked on propaganda for the BBC. He was forced to flee in fear of his life from Soviet-backed communists who were suppressing revolutionary socialist dissenters. Late in 1936, Orwell travelled to Spain to fight for the Republicans against Franco's Nationalists. 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). This was followed by his first novel, 'Burmese Days', in 1934.Īn anarchist in the late 1920s, by the 1930s he had begun to consider himself a socialist. He took the name George Orwell, shortly before its publication. He described his experiences in his first book, 'Down and Out in Paris and London', published in 1933. In 1928, he moved to Paris where lack of success as a writer forced him into a series of menial jobs. He resigned in 1927 and decided to become a writer. He was educated in England and, after he left Eton, joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, then a British colony. Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair on 25 June 1903 in eastern India, the son of a British colonial civil servant. © Orwell was a British journalist and author, who wrote two of the most famous novels of the 20th century 'Animal Farm' and 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'.

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