As the world marks the birth anniversary of George Orwell on June 25, it’s worth pausing to remember that the author of Animal Farm and 1984—two of the most defining works of 20th-century literature—was born not in England, but in Motihari, Bihar, in 1903.
Born as Eric Arthur Blair, Orwell’s early ties to India are often overlooked, especially by newer generations just discovering his complex, thought-provoking writing. His father, Richard Walmesley Blair, worked in the Opium Department of the Indian Civil Service under British rule. His mother, of French descent, was the daughter of a teak merchant in Burma (present-day Myanmar).
Though Orwell moved to England as an infant, these colonial connections—and his later stint as a British officer in Burma—would deeply influence his worldview and the themes of power, inequality, and resistance that echo through his works.