George Orwell
Few writers in the English-speaking world have written more penetratingly than British writer George Orwell, whose thought provoking works are marked by lucid prose and awareness of the unfair practices within a society that promotes inequality and hinder social advancement. Born Eric Arthur Blair, he adapted his nom de plume shortly before the debut of his first book Down and Out in Paris and London’ His big break was in 1945, following the release of Animal Farm, a controversial allegorical novella inspired by the rise and fall of the Soviet Union that explores how absolute power leads to corruption. Shortly before the writer’s untimely death in 1950, he revealed his magnum opus, Nineteen Eighty-Four, a chilling prophecy of sorts that imagines what life in a dystopian future is like, when all critical thought is suppressed under a totalitarian regime. – Maya Michael
