George Orwell

George Orwell, born Eric Arthur Blair, was a British author and journalist whose seminal novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) has become a touchstone of 20th-century dystopian literature, offering a stark portrayal of totalitarian control that continues to resonate in contemporary discussions of government surveillance, media manipulation, and the erosion of individual privacy.

Born in India and raised mainly in England, Orwell started his professional career by following in his father's footsteps in the Indian Civil service, joining the Indian Imperial Police as an Assistant District Superintendent in 1922. It was through this life experience that Orwell realized his distaste for colonial rule, which would frame much of his literary work to come.

In 1928, Orwell resigned from the Imperial Police and started his career as an author. His first novels, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933) and Burmese Days (1934), gave him literary recognition. Ten years later Orwell became a phenomenon with Animal Farm (1945). The novel mocks the USSR by depicting an animal coup against farmers, which only results in the animals turning against themselves and establishing another unjust state within their now “free” livelihood.

Although Orwell had great success with Animal Farm, he had greater success with his last novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Written in 1949, the novel is considered one of the best English language dystopian novels of the 20th century, along with Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World (1932). The novel has been twice adapted into film, once in 1954 titled 1984 and again in 1984 titled as the novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell passed away just six months after the book's first publication.