NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR - COLLECTOR'S EDITION
The Thought Police, Doublethink, Newspeak, Big Brother - 1984 itself: these terms and concepts have moved from the world of fiction into our everyday lives. They are central to our thinking about freedom and its suppression; yet they were newly created by George Orwell in 1949 as he conjured his dystopian vision of a world where totalitarian power is absolute.
In this novel, continuously popular since its first publication, readers can explore the dark and extraordinary world he brought so fully to life. The principal characters who lead us through that world are ordinary human beings like ourselves: Winston Smith and Julia, whose falling in love is also an act of rebellion against the Party. Opposing them are the massed powers of the state, which watches its citizens on all sides through technology now only too familiar to us. No-one is free from surveillance; the past is constantly altered, so that there is no truth except the most recent version; and Big Brother, both loved and feared, controls all. Even the simple act of keeping a diary - as Winston does - is punishable by death. In Winston's battle to keep his freedom of thought, he has a powerful adversary in O'Brien, who uses fear and pain to enter his very thought processes. Does 2 2 4? Or is it 5? We find out in Room 101. Nineteen Eighty-Four was Orwell's last novel; but the world he created is always with us, as successive generations of readers find within it a mirror for their own times and a warning for the future.
GEORGE ORWELL
1903-1950 Eric Blair George Orwell as he was to become when a published writer was a child of the Empire, born in Bengal, India, on June 25, 1903, the second child of Richard and Ida Blair. Richard was a civil servant in the Opium Department the trade between India and China having been legalised under British rule . In 1904, his wife Ida, 18 years his junior, took the baby Eric and his older sister Marjorie back to England to live. Richard visited on leave only once, for 3 months in 1907, the point when Eric's younger sister Avril was conceived. He retired back to England in 1911, the same year in which the eight-year-old Eric was sent to boarding school. Eric's formative early years were thus spent entirely in his father's absence.
Edad recomendada: Adultos.
ORWELL GEORGE
George Orwell, seudónimo de Eric Arthur Blair, nació el 25 de junio de 1903 en Motihari, India británica, y murió el 21 de enero de 1950 en Londres. Fue un escritor, periodista y ensayista británico, conocido por sus obras de crítica social y política. Estudió en Eton College y trabajó en la Policía Imperial Británica en Birmania, experiencia que inspiró su novela "Días en Birmania". Vivió en París y Londres, donde experimentó la pobreza, lo que reflejó en "Sin blanca en París y Londres". Participó en la Guerra Civil Española como voluntario del bando republicano, experiencia que plasmó en "Homenaje a Cataluña". Durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial trabajó en la BBC y colaboró con medios como Tribune y The Observer. Sus obras más influyentes son "Rebelión en la granja" y "1984", ambas críticas al totalitarismo y a los mecanismos de control político y social.