1984

Orwell (pseudonym of Eric Blair) was born in India, a son of the British Raj. From the age of five or six, he feels he should become a writer, and therefore read a lot. But when to 13, he discovers that at Eton where he is enrolled they do not teach literature, he devotes from himself to studying the masters of English prose he likes best, including Swift, Sterne and Jack London. to 19, he joins to the Imperial Indian Police, but soon realizes that in addition to to taking time away from his writing, this means endorsing a political system he does not believe in. He wishes to "escape from... all forms of man's dominion over man"(The Road to Wigan Pier, 1937). At the age of twenty-four, he returns to England, and settles in a small apartment in a slum, determined to to learn to writing, and at the same time to transform himself from Eric Blair, former Eton student and British colonial policeman, into George Orwell, unclassifiable anti-authoritarian. Living among the marginalized, he is commissioned by the Left Book Club to study the conditions of the poor and unemployed. from this experience develops The Road to Wigan Pier. In 1936 he goes to Spain to follow the civil war between communists and republican socialists in opposition to Franco's fascist military revolution. to Barcelona, he experiences the annulment of class differences and becomes convinced that a socially conscious world is possible, only to be disappointed when the end of the war brings to a "return to normalcy," and he becomes persona non grata. These experiences convince him that if there is hope, there is also something in human nature that seems to seek violence, conflict, and power over others. In 1938 he fell ill with tuberculosis and at the outbreak of World War II was reformed as physically unfit. But still he made his contribution and at the end of the war, he moved with his family to a remote island off the coast of Scotland, where he created his two most enduring works, Animal Farm and 1984.

tor, director, screenwriter, and producer of films and plays, Robbins has won numerous awards, including an Oscar for best supporting actor for Mystic River, and the best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival for Robert Altman's The Player--The Play ers._ Dead Man Walking_, for which he was director, screenwriter, and producer, has won numerous awards including an Oscar for best actress for Susan Sarandon. Robbins is also artistic director of Actors' Gang, the theater company he founded in 1982 that has staged more than 80 productions, earning hundreds of awards. His show Embedded ran for more than four months at New York's Public Theater, always selling out, and then embarked on a tour that touched London and much of the United States. With the Actors Gang, he staged a much-discussed and highly successful adaptation of George Orwell's 1984, which was presented on four different continents. Robbins and his company promote educational programs in Los Angeles-area schools, and for the past five years they have begun to offering theater workshops involving inmates of California city correctional institutions.