George Orwell                             

                                                         1903 - 1950

             "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face"



     Orwell was a British journalist and author, who wrote two of the most famous novels of the 20th century 'Animal Farm' and 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'.

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      "As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead trying to kill me"

Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair on 25 June 1903 in eastern India, the son of a British colonial civil servant. He was educated in England and, after he left Eton, joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, then a British colony. He resigned in 1927 and decided to become a writer. In 1928, he moved to Paris where lack of success as a writer forced him into a series of menial jobs. He described his experiences in his first book, 'Down and Out in Paris and London', published in 1933. He took the name George Orwell, shortly before its publication. This was followed by his first novel, 'Burmese Days', in 1934.

                     "All war propaganda comes invariably from people who are not fighting."

An anarchist in the late 1920s, by the 1930s he had begun to consider himself a socialist. In 1936, he was commissioned to write an account of poverty among unemployed miners in northern England, which resulted in 'The Road to Wigan Pier' (1937). Late in 1936, Orwell travelled to Spain to fight for the Republicans against Franco's Nationalists. He was forced to flee in fear of his life from Soviet-backed communists who were suppressing revolutionary socialist dissenters. The experience turned him into a lifelong anti-Stalinist.

    "The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it."

Between 1941 and 1943, Orwell worked on propaganda for the BBC. In 1943, he became literary editor of the Tribune, a weekly left-wing magazine. By now he was a prolific journalist, writing articles, reviews and books.


In 1945, Orwell's 'Animal Farm' was published. A political fable set in a farmyard but based on Stalin's betrayal of the Russian Revolution, it made Orwell's name and ensured he was financially comfortable for the first time in his life. 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' was published four years later. Set in an imaginary totalitarian future, the book made a deep impression, with its title and many phrases - such as 'Big Brother is watching you', 'newspeak' and 'doublethink' - entering popular use. By now Orwell's health was deteriorating and he died of tuberculosis on 21 January 1950.


               http://youtu.be/8hhRgSXRT8Y   Animal Farm    Audio

               http://youtu.be/aOAEhi0m3MA  Nineteen Eighty-Four   Audio

               http://youtu.be/ImYf8s-Z_Z8       Homage to Catalonia   Audio
              

 

 

               John Steinbeck.    1902-1968

                      From " Tortilla flat" to" The Grapes of wrath."

    

  When John Steinbeck died in 1968, he was one of America's most popular novelist. His works had a profound effect on the American people. Today, he is still a popular and powerful author in America as well as a worldwide literary figure.

  John Ernst Steinbeck was born in 1902 in the Salinas Valley. He was the third of four children and the only boy. His family was a close, middle class unit living in a small community. The Salinas Valley would later prove to be the location of many of his books and short stories. Both of his parents believed in exposing their children to culture and they often travelled to San Francisco to attend the theatre. They also had a wide variety of novels and literature available in the home. At the age of nine, Steinbeck received a copy of Malory's Morte d'Arthur which proved to be one of the biggest influences in his literary career. He attended Stanford University where he majored in English, but never received a degree. He married three times, the last being to Elaine Scott in 1950 which lasted until his death. He fathered two boys. He died in 1968 in New York where he had lived from time to time since 1944. His ashes were buried in Salinas, California.

  "Tortilla Flat 1935"   Set in the slums of Monterey California, this short novel was his first success, depicting the class of (paisano) Spanish/Mexican cultural identity with traditional European capitalist culture in twentieth century California .It shows the seemingly inevitable obliteration of older values by the American capitalist system.

 

    "Of Mice and Men  1937" Set in California. In 1937 America was still suffering the grim aftermath of the depression and the itinerant workers ,who form the basis of the novel, were very much within the consciousness of a nation separated by wealth, yet driven by the idea of the American dream. This novel, however, is essentially a tale of men and women struggling against

a cold, uncaring and faceless destiny yet never losing hope even  as their dreams are shattered.

 

    "The Grapes of Wrath  1939" This novel depicts the migration of a dispossessed family* (Okies) from the Oklahoma dust bowl to California and their subsequent exploitation by a ruthless system of agricultural economics .  A deeply moving story, heartbreaking ; but throughout shines the strength of

the human spirit, capturing a significant event in the history of America.

 

 * ("The Okies" This was a name for the poor white farmers forced from their land in the great plains by a combination of bad weather and human greed. They sought a new life in California.)