The English writer and publicist George Orwell is best known as the author of the dystopian novel 1984, which clearly shows what a totalitarian regime can do to an individual. But this, of course, is not his only work.
Years before writing, first stories and novels
George Orwell is a literary pseudonym, the real name of the writer Eric Arthur Blair. Eric was born in the Indian city of Motihari in June 1903. His father was an employee in one of the departments of the colonial administration of India.
At the age of eight, the future writer went to an English school for boys, where he studied until he was thirteen. Then Eric received a personal scholarship, which gave him the right to education at the prestigious Eton College in Britain.
After graduating from Eton, the young man returned to Asia and joined the Myanmar police (then this country was called Burma and was a British colony). He worked here from 1922 to 1927, during which time he became an ardent and staunch anti-imperialist.
Ultimately, Blair decided to take a desperate step - he resigned and headed to Europe. Here he wandered for a long time and worked in low-skilled jobs - first in England, then in France. At some point, the young man settled in Paris and took up literary work in earnest. His first story was called A Dog's Life in Paris and London, and he decided to publish it under the pseudonym George Orwell. This story describes the adventures that Eric himself experienced over the past few years. Critics reacted favorably to the story, but ordinary readers did not buy it too willingly.
In 1934, the American publishing house Harper & Brothers published Orwell's second novel, Days in Burma, and it was also based on autobiographical material. In 1935 and 1936, two more art books of the author were published - "Let there be a ficus!" and The Priest's Daughter. In them, Orwell rather harshly criticizes the capitalist system and the English society of the thirties.
Orwell in the late thirties and during World War II
In 1936, the writer married Eileen O'Shaughnessy, and then went with her to Spain, where the civil war broke out. Orwell arrived in this country as a journalist, but almost immediately joined the partisan detachment of the Marxist (but not supporting Stalin and the Soviet Union) workers' party POUM. It is known that the writer fought on the Teruel and Aragonese fronts, was wounded in the throat by a sniper, and then returned back to England. And in 1937 he wrote a book "In honor of Catalonia", where he spoke in detail about what he saw in Spain.
In 1940, another major Orwellian novel was published - "For a breath of fresh air." This is a novel in which the nostalgia of the protagonist (a forty-five-year-old insurance agent) for his childhood is mixed with the dark foreboding of a great catastrophe.
When World War II began, Orwell wanted to go to the front, but his health did not pass: he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and old wounds were making themselves felt. Remaining in England, he got a job at the BBC, where until 1943 he hosted an anti-fascist radio program. It is interesting that in his speeches and publications of this time, the writer, despite the fact that he did not like the Stalinist regime, supported the Soviet Union in the struggle against the Nazi invaders.
And at the very end of the war, when only a few weeks remained until the date of the surrender of Nazi Germany, Orwell experienced a great personal tragedy - his beloved wife, Eileen, suddenly died.
Later work of the writer - "Animal Farm" and "1984"
The most important place in Orwell's legacy is occupied by the story-parable "Animal Farm", published in the fall of 1945. This is a cautionary tale about how the animals on the farm, having expelled people, tried to build the most just and free society. In the USSR, for ideological reasons, this story was not published until the end of the eighties.
In 1946, the writer moved to a secluded home on the island of Jura, located off the coast of Scotland. It was here that Orwell worked on his famous novel 1984. It was published in 1949 and has become a cult icon over time. This novel tells about the dark and unfree world of the future, where everyone is controlled by the Party and its leader - the mysterious Big Brother.
In the same 1949, Orwell, tired of loneliness, proposed a "companion" marriage to Sonia Brownell, who was fifteen years younger than the writer. Sonya agreed, and they got married in October 1949 right in the hospital ward - by this time Orwell was already very sick with tuberculosis.
The famous writer died just a few months later - in January 1950.
