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George Orwell

George Orwell, also known as Eric Blair, was born in 1903 in Bengal, India. Shortly after his birth, his father who was an English civil servant, moved back to England, where he spent most of his life. He wrote numerous novels, essays and poems in which he sharply mocked and criticized society. He became famous when his novel 1984 was published in 1949 wherein he forecasts a frightening, totalitarian society that punishes love, distorts truth, and destroys privacy.

As a youngster, he attended Eton on a scholarship. After he graduated, Orwell didn't have enough money to continue his schooling at Oxford or Cambridge, so he joined the Burman Military Police. He decided to leave this position, and write a book, which was Down and Out in Paris and London, and was published in 1933. This book was not a commercial success; however, it was praised by the critics. His next book was Burmese Days, which was published in 1934. His works did not sell well and throughout this period, he lived in extreme poverty.

In 1936, Orwell married Eileen O'Shaughnessy. His book The Road to Winigam Peir was published a year after his marriage. It was followed in 1938 by Homage to Catalonia, which recounts his experiences fighting for the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War.

Orwell's two best known books are Animal Farm (published in 1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949).

He died in 1950 at the age of 46 suffering from tuberculosis.

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