"Nineteen Eighty-Four" Author: [British] George Orwell Publisher: Shanghai Translation Publishing House

George Orwell is a British man, whose real name is Eric Arthur Blair. He was born in India in 1903. At that time, his father worked in the local colonial government. In his own words, his family belonged to "the lower middle class, or a middle-class family without money."

In 1904, his mother took him back to England. He was gifted since childhood. At the age of 11, he published a poem in a newspaper, "Wake Up, Young Men of England". At the age of 14, he was admitted to the famous Eton School and received a scholarship. However, as early as in primary school, he suffered the bitterness of being discriminated against by children from wealthy families. From his later retrospect, it can be seen that with his naturally sensitive mind, he had already had a preliminary experience of inequality.

In 1921, after graduating from Eton, Blair passed the civil service exam and became an imperial policeman in Burma, where the miserable lives of the enslaved colonial people constantly stimulated his conscience. Seeing them struggling in hunger and cold, and in slavery at the mercy of others, he deeply felt that "imperialism is a kind of tyranny." As an imperial policeman, he was tormented by his conscience and resigned in 1927. Later, he wrote A Hanging (1931, this is the official publication date, the same below), Burmese Days (1934) and Shooting an Elephant (1936). These documentary works ruthlessly exposed the crimes of imperialism.

However, this life experience still made Blair feel guilty. In order to express his repentance through actions and to educate himself, he went deep into the lowest level of society and wandered around since he returned to China in January 1928. Although he was weak and sickly since childhood, he worked as a dishwasher in Paris and London, lived in slums, and often mingled with vagrants and beggars. The following year, Blair wrote a documentary work about this experience, "Down and Out in Paris and London" (1933), which truly described the suffering of people living at the bottom of society. It was when signing this work that Blair used the pen name "George Orwell". To some extent, the appearance of "Orwell" started Blair's new life.

At this time, Orwell had already tied his deep emotions to the fate of the proletariat, and began to lean towards socialism in his thoughts. He could not tolerate the "neglected" status of the working people in Britain, and he once wrote affectionately: "They are the real British." Coincidentally, in 1936, a progressive publisher hired a writer who was "not a victim himself, but a witness" to go to the northern industrial area (Lancashire, Yorkshire) to conduct a field investigation on the poverty of workers. Orwell, who was considered the most suitable candidate, gladly accepted the job. It took several months, through his own eyes, and referenced Engels's "The Road to Wigan Pier" (1937) - which recorded a lot of facts, deeply reflecting the misery of the lives of the people in the industrial area and the darkness of the world. Orwell not only angrily condemned the destruction of human nature by capitalist industrialization, but also advocated the use of socialism to save the ills of society.

In July 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out. At the end of the same year, Orwell and his newlywed wife went to Spain to join the glorious battle to defend the Republican government. Orwell served as a second lieutenant on the front line and was seriously injured in the throat. His book "Homage to Catalonia" (1938) to record the Spanish Civil War later became an authoritative document on this civil war.

However, this just war failed in the end due to the internal division of the left-wing Republican government. Orwell, who did not die under the fascist bullets, almost lost his life in the struggle between the parties within the Republican government. This painful experience had a huge impact on Orwell. He once said that he had been a socialist since 1930, and at this time, he began to consider the issue of "defending democratic socialism". This ideological starting point has always influenced the creation of his two later masterpieces, "Animal Farm" and "1984" (Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949).

He left behind a large number of works for future generations. Just taking Animal Farm and 1984 as an example, his influence is immeasurable. In fact, there is a special word in modern English called "Orwellian" to refer to some social phenomena described by Orwell. If it is said that the works throughout Orwell's life mainly reflect the two themes of "poverty" and "politics", then the main motivation that inspired him to write like this was conscience and sincerity. In January 1950, Orwell died of illness at the age of 46.