An anarchist in the late 1920s, by the 1930s he had begun to consider
himself a socialist. In 1936, he wrote an account⁵ of poverty among unemployed miners in northern England, which resulted in The Road to Wigan Pier (1937). The crucial political experience of his life was the six months he spent in Spain, in 1937, as a Republican volunteer against Francisco Franco. Spain made Orwell “believe in Socialism for the first time”, as he wrote, while instilling a strong hatred⁶ of totalitarian political systems. Homage to Catalonia, an account of his time in Spain, was published in 1938.
Between 1941 and 1943, Orwell worked for the BBC. In 1943, he became literary editor of the Tribune, a left-wing weekly magazine. By now, he was a prolific journalist, writing articles, reviews and books.
Animal Farm, his bitter satire of the Soviet experiment, was written by the middle of 1944. This political fable, based on Stalin’s betrayal⁷ of the Russian Revolution, made Orwell famous and ensured he was financially comfortable for the first time in his life. Publishers’ timidity, and the pressure exerted by a Russian spy working for the Ministry of
Information, delayed⁸ the appearance of this allegorical short novel until August 1945. Five months earlier, Eileen had died during an operation.
The couple had previously adopted a small boy, Richard Horatio Blair.
Nineteen Eighty-Four was published four years later (1949). This book, which is set⁹ in an imaginary totalitarian future, made a deep
impression. Its title and many phrases, such as, ‘Big Brother is watching you’, ‘newspeak’ and ‘doublethink’ entered popular use.
The enormous international success of this dystopian10 novel came too late for its author. Orwell’s health was slowly deteriorating and shortly before his death, he made an unexpected second marriage to Sonia Brownell, the assistant editor of a literary magazine. He died of tuberculosis on 21st January 1950, aged 46.