Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell) was born in 1903 in India where his father was a civil servant. After studying at Eton, he served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma for several years which inspired his first novel, Burmese Days. After two years in Paris, he returned to England to work as a teacher and then in a bookshop. In 1936 he travelled to Spain to fight for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, where he was badly wounded.
During the Second World War he worked for the BBC. A prolific journalist and essayist, Orwell wrote some of the most influential books in English literature, including the dystopian Nineteen Eighty-Four and his political allegory Animal Farm. He died from tuberculosis in 1950.
Jason Cowley is an award-winning journalist, magazine editor and writer. He has been widely credited with transforming the fortunes of the New Statesman, both as a magazine and website.
In 2020 he was voted editor of the year (politics and current affairs) for the fourth time at the British Society of Magazine Editors awards. He is the author of The Last Game, Reaching for Utopia and Who Are We Now?.