Contents
George Orwell
Writing Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Homage to Catalonia · Political essays
- Born
- 25 June 1903
- Birthplace
- Motihari, British India (now India)
- Died
- 21 January 1950
More people
George Orwell
An English novelist, essayist and journalist whose writing examined poverty, imperialism and political control. He wrote under a pen name; his birth name was Eric Arthur Blair.
Early life
India to England
Born in British India and moved to England with his mother as a small child.
Schooling
Attended Eton on a scholarship before taking a police post overseas.
Career
- 1922–1927
Colonial policeman
Served in Burma; the experience helped turn him against imperialism.
- 1930s
Writing and reporting
Published books and essays shaped by poverty, casual work and the Spanish Civil War.
- 1941–1945
BBC and Tribune
Worked in wartime broadcasting, then as literary editor of Tribune.
- 1945–1949
Political fiction
Published Animal Farm and completed Nineteen Eighty-Four while increasingly ill.
Selected work
Down and Out in Paris and London
An account of poverty and insecure work.
Homage to Catalonia
His experience fighting in the Spanish Civil War.
Animal Farm
A revolution betrayed, told through farm animals.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
A dictatorship built on surveillance and control of language.
Beyond work
Family
He and Eileen O'Shaughnessy adopted a son. After her death, he later married Sonia Brownell.
Jura
Lived on the Scottish island while working on Nineteen Eighty-Four; died of tuberculosis in 1950.
Sources & photo credit
Biographical reference ↗Orwell Foundation: life and work ↗Orwell Foundation: biography ↗Orwell Foundation: Nineteen Eighty-Four ↗Photo: Branch of the National Union of Journalists (BNUJ).. Public domain · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.
