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Author of the Month

George Orwell

This month we're looking at George Orwell

English novelist, essayist and critic, famous for his novels ANIMAL FARM (1945) and NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR (1949), both classics of political satire. Although Orwell expressed leftist views, he remained an uncompromising individualist and political idealist until the end of his life, and was called the conscience of the age by his contemporaries.

"The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, than one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push ascetism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human individuals."

(from 'Reflections on Gandhi', in Shooting an Elephant, 1949)

George Orwell was born in Motihari, Bengal, India, the second child of Richard Walmesley Blair and Ida Mabel Limonzin. His father was a civil servant in the opium department and his mother came from a family of old Burma hands. In 1904 Orwell moved to England with his mother and sister. He attended Eton and published his first writings in college periodicals. During these years Orwell developed his antipathy towards the English class systems. Orwell's years at St Cyprian's Preparatory School were likewise not happy. His bitter essay dealing with this period, SUCH, SUCH WERE THE JOYS, was not published until 1968.

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