About the author
George Orwell was the pen name of English novelist, essayist, and journalist Eric Blair. His lucid prose joined social observation to a sustained opposition to imperialism, authoritarian language, and totalitarian power.
Orwell builds Oceania with bureaucratic precision: Newspeak, the language designed to make heresy inexpressible; doublethink, the discipline of holding contradictions; the Two Minutes Hate and the endless, shifting war. Every mechanism in the book has a recognizable ancestor in real politics, which is why it has never stopped being quoted.
Where to start
Start with 1984. Winston Smith falsifies history for the Party and dares, briefly, to think for himself.
