About the book: 2019 / Not everyone who utters the aphorism “all are equal, but some are more equal” knows that they are quoting George Orwell. His own life could serve as the basis for a novel. He was born in India, served in the colonial police in Burma, wandered through the slums of Paris, fought against the Francoists in Spain and at the same time remained a true Englishman. Known primarily as the author of the parable "Animal Farm" and the utopian novel "1984", he worked as an editor and presenter of BBC radio programs, analyzing in print the work of not only his contemporaries, but also his great predecessors Shakespeare, Swift, Dickens and Leo Tolstoy. How did conservatism and leftist ideas coexist in his worldview? Why did he choose his native England as the setting for the novel about totalitarianism? Why, considering himself a socialist, did he severely criticize British Labor, hated the Stalinist regime and presented the British authorities with a “black list” of unreliable cultural figures? These questions are answered by the authors of the biography of George Orwell, called by his colleague and fellow countryman Victor Pritchett the most original of his contemporaries.