George Orwell

Orwell was profoundly shaped by his experiences fighting against fascists in the Spanish Civil War and his subsequent disillusionment with Soviet communism. He wrote much of the novel while seriously ill on the remote Scottish island of Jura, completing the manuscript in late 1948; the title inverts the last two digits of that year.

Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair on June 25, 1903, in Motihari, Bengal Presidency, British India. He adopted the pen name George Orwell before the 1933 publication of "Down and Out in Paris and London," reportedly to save his family from embarrassment over the book's candid depiction of poverty.

Yes, Orwell traveled to Spain in December 1936 and joined the POUM (Workers' Party of Marxist Unification) militia on the Aragon front. He was shot through the throat by a sniper near Huesca in May 1937, nearly killing him, and documented his experiences in "Homage to Catalonia" (1938).

Big Brother is the symbolic leader of the Party in the totalitarian state of Oceania, and the phrase "Big Brother is watching you" is plastered on posters throughout London in the novel. Though Big Brother may or may not be an actual person, he functions as the focus of mandatory citizen worship and the face of constant surveillance through devices called telescreens.