George Orwell

George Orwell, born Eric Arthur Blair, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. His body of work provides one of the twentieth century's most trenchant critiques of totalitarianism and is characterized by lucid prose, social criticism, and support of democratic socialism. His non-fiction works, including Homage to Catalonia, draw directly on his experiences fighting as a Republican volunteer in the Spanish Civil War. He died of tuberculosis in January 1950 at the age of 46.