George Orwell (Orwell George)

(1903-1950)
Orwell - the pseudonym of Eric Blair (Erik Blair) - was born June 25, 1903, in Matihari (Bengal). His father, a British colonial official who has held a minor post in the Indian Customs Department. Orwell was educated in the school of St.. Cyprian, in 1917 received a nominal stipend and up to 1921 attended Eton College. In 1922-1927 he served in the colonial police in Burma. In 1927, after returning home on leave, decided to resign and take up fiction writing.
Early - and not only the documentary - George Orwell's book is largely autobiographical. Sudomoem visited in Paris and collector of hops in Kent, stroll on the English villages, Orwell gets material for his first book, Dog's Life in Paris and London (Down and Out in Paris and London, 1933). Days in Burma (Burmese Days, 1934) to a large extent, shows the east during his life. Like the author, the hero of the book Let blooms aspidistra (Keep the Aspidistra Flying, 1936) works as an assistant second-hand bookshop, and the heroine of the novel Daughter of a priest (A Clergyman's Daughter, 1935) teaches at the shabby private schools. In 1936 the club left Orwell's book sent to the north of England to study the life of the unemployed in the working-class neighborhoods. The immediate result of this visit was an angry book and documentary, The Road to Wigan Pier (The Road to Wigan Pier, 1937), where Orwell, to the displeasure of their employers, criticized the English Socialism. In addition, during this trip he has acquired strong interest in works of mass culture, as reflected in his essays have become classics Art of Donald McGill (The Art of Donald McGill) and weekly for boys (Boys' Weeklies).

Civil war broke out in Spain, caused a second crisis in the life of Orwell. Always acted in accordance with their beliefs, . Orwell went to Spain as a journalist, . but immediately upon arrival in Barcelona joined the partisan unit of the Marxist workers' party POUM, . fought on the Aragon front and Teruelskom, . was seriously wounded,
. In May 1937 he took part in the battle for Barcelona at the side of the POUM and the anarchists against the Communists. Pursued by the secret police of the communist government, Orwell fled from Spain. In his narration of the trenches of the civil war - Homage to Catalonia (Homage to Catalonia, 1939) - he reveals the intentions of the Stalinists to seize power in Spain. The Spanish experience would not let Orwell's lifelong. In the last pre-war novel, For a breath of fresh air (Coming Up for Air, 1940), he exposes the erosion of values and norms in the modern world.

Orwell believed that this fiction should be "as transparent as glass," and he wrote very clearly. Samples of what he regarded as the main virtues of prose, can be seen in his essay The killing of an elephant (Shooting an Elephant; rus. translated 1989) and especially in his essay Politics and the English Language (Politics and the English Language), where he argues that dishonesty in politics and language are inextricably linked slovenliness. His duty as a writer Orwell saw it, to defend the ideals of liberal socialism and the struggle with totalitarian tendencies which threatened the era. In 1945 he wrote his famed Animal Farm (Animal Farm) - a satire on the Russian revolution and the collapse of the hopes generated by it, in the form of telling a parable about how to become a farm to host animals. His last book was the novel 1984 (1984), dystopia in which Orwell's fear and anger paints a totalitarian society. Orwell died in London on January 21, 1950.