George Orwell

June 25, 1903 – January 21, 1950

George Orwell was a UK author who wrote the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four—one of the best dystopian novels of the 20th century. Its tale of perpetual war, mass surveillance, and stamping out of individualism resonates to this day.

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 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.