Nineteen Eighty-Four

George Orwell (1903-1950)
Born in India, Eric Arthur Blair was better known by his penname, George Orwell. His work as a journalist, his non-fiction writing, and his time spent as a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War demonstrated his strong political beliefs, which carried into his fiction. Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four are widely cited as key works of political allegory, and his name has become a shorthand for political dystopias, while terms from his novels have permeated the common lexicon. He died in 1950 at the age of 46.