Volume 370 pages
1949 year
1984
About the book
1984 is a political and dystopian science-fiction novel set in Airstrip One, a province of the superstate Oceania. It is a mind-numbing world which in a state of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance and public manipulation. Dictated by a political system, called Ingsoc, the lives of its people is under the control of privileged elite of the «Inner Party» which persecutes individualism and independent thinking as «thought crime.» Due to the novel's huge popularity, many of its terms and concepts, such as Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak, Room 101, telescreen, 2 + 2 = 5, and memory hole, have entered into common use since its publication in 1949. It has also popularised the adjective «Orwellian», which describes official deception, secret surveillance, and manipulation of recorded history by a totalitarian or authoritarian state.
George Orwell (1903-1950) whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. His work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism.
He began walking jerkily up and down, evidently unable to keep still
cowardly to clutch at a rope
in the bazaars of China
There was a dull aching in his belly. It had been there ever since they had bundled him into the closed van and driven him away
demolished a group of houses two hundred meters up the street
