George Orwell Biography

George Orwell also known by the name of Eric Arthur Blair,

born in 1903 in Motihari, Bengal, India, during the time of the
British colonial rule. Young Orwell was brought to England by
his mother and educated in Henley and Sussex at schools. The Orwell family was
not wealthy, and, in reading Orwell's personal essays about his childhood, readers
can easily see that his formative years were less than satisfying. Orwell studied the
master writers and began to develop his own writing style. At Eton, he came into
contact with liberalist and socialist ideals, and it was here that his initial political
views were formed.
Orwell then decided to follow family tradition and, in 1922, went to Burma as
assistant district superintendent in the Indian Imperial Police. He served in a
number of country stations and at first appeared to be a model imperial servant. Yet
from boyhood he had wanted to become a writer, and when he realized how much
against their will the Burmese were ruled by the British, he felt increasingly
ashamed of his role as a colonial police officer. Later he was to recount his
experiences and his reactions to imperial rule in his novel Burmese Days and in two
brilliant autobiographical sketches, Shooting an Elephant and A Hanging,
classics of expository prose. Orwell then retired from his police officer job and
returned to England and it was in England that he then wrote two novels expressing
his hatred for imperialism
In December 1936, Orwell traveled to Spain, where he joined one of the groups
fighting against General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Orwell was badly
injured during his time with a militia, getting shot in the throat and arm. For several
weeks, he was unable to speak. Orwell and his wife, Eileen, were indicted on
treason charges in Spain. Orwell was officially diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1938.
To support himself, Orwell took on all sorts of writing work. He wrote numerous
essays and reviews over the years, developing a reputation for producing wellcrafted literary criticism. In 1941, Orwell landed a job with the BBC as a producer.
He developed news commentary and shows for audiences in the eastern part of the
British Empire. Orwell enticed such literary greats as T. S. Eliot and E. M. Forster to
appear on his programs. With World War II raging on, Orwell found himself acting as
a propagandist to advance the country's side.
It was over the course of those times that Orwell found heightened his hatred for
the Soviet Union. Orwell wrote two anti-Soviet books that lead to his fame. In 1945,
Orwell's 'Animal Farm' was published. A political fable set in a farmyard but based

on Stalin's betrayal of the Russian Revolution, it made Orwell's name and ensured
he was financially comfortable for the first time in his life. 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'
was published four years later. Set in an imaginary totalitarian future, the book
made a deep impression, with its title and many phrases - such as 'Big Brother is
watching you', 'newspeak' and 'doublethink' - entering popular use.