About The Author
GEORGE ORWELL(1903-1950)
George Orwell’s real name was Eric Arthur Blair. He was born in 1903 in Motihari, Bengal, India. His father worked in India for the British government. In 1904 Orwell and his mother and sister moved to England. He lived there until 1922. Orwell began writing when he was about five years old. His first poem was published when he was eleven years old. Some of his writings were published in college magazines.
From 1922-1927 he worked in Burma as an administrator for the Indian Imperial Police. However, he disapproved of the way the British government was running things, so he resigned. He moved to Paris, and then to London. In 1928 he began writing professionally with some degree of success. In 1933 he began using the pen name “George Orwell.”
In 1933 he wrote about his experiences in Paris and London in a book called Down and Out in Paris and London. At the same time, Orwell taught at a private school in Middlesex, England. In 1934 his second book, Burmese Days, was published. He was teaching at a private school at the same time. During this time he contracted pneumonia, which recurred frequently for the rest of his life.
Orwell married in 1936. Soon after that he went to Spain to write newspaper articles during the Spanish Civil War. Orwell supported the cause of the United Workers Marxist Party and fought with them. His experiences in Spain convinced him that he was opposed to communism and in favor of English socialism.
Orwell was a sergeant in the Home Guard in England during World War II. He was also a broadcast journalist for the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). He disagreed with much of the information from England that he was supposed to broadcast to India and Southeast Asia. He left the job, and from 1943 until 1945 he was the literary editor for the Observer and Tribune.
Orwell published Animal Farm in 1944. His wife died shortly before the publication. In 1949 he published 1984, which was highly successful. He married again in 1949, but died of tuberculosis in 1950. Animal Farm and 1984 are considered two of the most important literary works of the twentieth century.
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