Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903-21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic whose work is marked by clear prose, awareness of social iniquity, opposition to totalitarianism and candid support of democratic socialism. Orwell wrote literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. He is best known for the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). In 2008, The Times ranked him second on a list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945”.
