1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four

關於作者

喬治．歐威爾，本名艾瑞克．亞瑟．布萊爾（Eric Arthur Blair，1903–1950），英國記者、散文家、評論家與小說家。最廣為人知的作品為《動物農莊》與《一九八四》，其文字至今依然對世界產生深遠影響。

About the author
George Orwell is one of England's most famous writers and social commentators. Among his works are the classic political satire Animal Farm and the dystopian nightmare vision Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell was also a prolific essayist, and it is for these works that he was perhaps best known during his lifetime. They include Why I Write and Politics and the English Language. His writing is at once insightful, poignant and entertaining, and continues to be read widely all over the world.

Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell) was born in 1903 in India, where his father worked for the Civil Service. The family moved to England in 1907 and in 1917 Orwell entered Eton, where he contributed regularly to the various college magazines. From 1922 to 1927 he served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, an experience that inspired his first novel, Burmese Days (1934). Several years of poverty followed. He lived in Paris for two years before returning to England, where he worked successively as a private tutor, schoolteacher and bookshop assistant, and contributed reviews and articles to a number of periodicals. Down and Out in Paris and London was published in 1933. In 1936 he was commissioned by Victor Gollancz to visit areas of mass unemployment in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) is a powerful description of the poverty he saw there.

At the end of 1936 Orwell went to Spain to fight for the Republicans and was wounded. Homage to Catalonia is his account of the civil war. He was admitted to a sanatorium in 1938 and from then on was never fully fit. He spent six months in Morocco and there wrote Coming Up for Air. During the Second World War he served in the Home Guard and worked for the BBC Eastern Service from 1941 to 1943. As literary editor of the Tribune he contributed a regular page of political and literary commentary, and he also wrote for the Observer and later for the Manchester Evening News. His unique political allegory, Animal Farm was published in 1945, and it was this novel, together with Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which brought him world-wide fame.

It was around this time that Orwell's unique political allegory Animal Farm (1945) was published. The novel is recognised as a classic of modern political satire and is simultaneously an engaging story and convincing allegory. It was this novel, together with Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which finally brought him world-wide fame. Nineteen Eighty-Four's ominous depiction of a repressive, totalitarian regime shocked contemporary readers, but ensures that the book remains perhaps the preeminent dystopian novel of modern literature.

Orwell's fiercely moral writing has consistently struck a chord with each passing generation. The intense honesty and insight of his essays and non-fiction made Orwell one of the foremost social commentators of his age. Added to this, his ability to construct elaborately imaginative fictional worlds, which he imbued with this acute sense of morality, has undoubtedly assured his contemporary and future relevance.

George Orwell died in London in January 1950.

《動物農莊》作者筆下最具代表性的經典巨作，暢銷全球、震撼至今的反烏托邦小說。

書評推薦

「歐威爾最後的傑作……對理解現代歷史不可或缺，令人著迷。」——《紐約書評》

「深刻、可怕又完全引人入勝……歐威爾對權力的理論發展得極其精彩。」——《紐約客》

「一位敢於挑戰禁忌、言說不可言者的預言者，即便他冒犯了主流思想。」——《每日快報》

「架構精妙、敘事出色。」——《衛報》

「本書沒有一絲笑容或玩笑，每一行都增添了這個令人絕望世界的苦澀感。」——《時代雜誌》

Review
‘His final masterpiece … enthralling and indispensable for understanding modern history’ New York Review of Books

‘A profound, terrifying and wholly fascinating book … Orwell’s theory of power is developed brilliantly’ The New Yorker

‘A prophet who thought the unthinkable and spoke the unspeakable, even when it offended conventional thought’ Daily Express

‘Brilliantly constructed and told’ Guardian

‘There is not a smile or a jest that does not add bitterness to Orwell’s utterly depressing vision of what the world may be in 35 years’ time’ TIME