1. George Orwell • Eric Arthur Blair • Born June 25, 1903 • Father was an employee of India’s government- Opium Department • Moved to Oxfordshire, England 1904 • Eric Blair -- George Orwell as student, 1921. (Orwell Archive) • Knew wanted to be a writer from age 5 • Won scholarships to Wellington & Eaton- College Prep Schools • Neglected to win a University Scholarship

2. Employment • 1923 • Burma Provincial Police Training School, Mandalay (Eric Blair standing third from the left) • 5 years • Left – Dreams of becoming a writer and could not support a political system of imperialism

3. Employment • 1927- Moved to Paris to write • Ran out of money & became a dishwasher • 1929- Became an official Tramp & roamed the English countryside • Teaching at the Hawthorns, 1933. (Geoffrey Stevens) • Time to write & publish books

4. Employment • Wrote Down and Out in Paris & Burmese Days • 1941- Producer & Broadcaster for BBC India

5. Committed Socialist • Went to Spain to report on Spanish Civil War • Soon joined the struggle against the Nationalist Army • Member of the Lenin Division in Barcelona • March 1937 • On the Aragon front at Huesca: Orwell is the tall figure standing in the centre, Eileen Blair is crouching in front of him

6. POUM • Joined the Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification • Worked his way up to 2nd Lieutenant • An outlaw • Sniper Bullet to the neck • Returned to England

7. George Orwell • Pseudonym • '...I would prefer the book to be published pseudonymously. I have no reputation that is lost by doing this and if the book has any kind of success I can always use this pseudonym again.' In effect, it meant that Eric Blair would somehow have to shed his old identity and take on a new. This is exactly what he tried to do: he tried to change himself from Eric Blair, old Etonian and English colonial policemen, into George Orwell, classless anti-authoritarian. • Orwell= River in Suffolk, England • George= British, Christian Name

8. Utopia • Utopia ideal civilization, which may range from a city to a world, regarded to be attainable in the future by some. • Humans all work to create a better, or perhaps perfect society. • “Utopian" in a negative meaning is used to discredit ideas as too advanced, too optimistic or unrealistic and impossible to realize.

9. Anti-Utopian Writer • Cautionary tales about what can happen if tyranny and totalarianism is left to rule. Warns against a future lead by selfishness. • Orwell envisions a world corrupted by power and devastated by nuclear war and poverty. • The writer at work. Orwell typing in his flat in Islington, winter 1945. (Vernon Richards) ://www.orwell.ru/bio/gallery/english/eg_003 www.k-1.com/Orwell/