Not all, uttering the aphorism "all are equal but some are more equal than others", you know that quote by George Orwell. His own life could serve as the basis for the novel. He was born in India, served in the colonial police in Burma, wandered through the slums of Paris, fought against the francoists in Spain and at the same time remained a true Englishman. Known primarily as the author of the parable "Barnyard" and the novel-utopia "1984", he worked as an editor and host of radio programs of the BBC, analyzed in print the work of not only contemporaries, but also his great predecessors Shakespeare, swift, Dickens and Leo Tolstoy.How did his worldview coexist conservatism and leftist ideas? Why did he choose his native England as the scene of the novel about totalitarianism? Why, considering himself a socialist, subjected to the most severe criticism of British labour, hated the Stalin regime and presented the British authorities with a "black list" of unreliable cultural figures? These questions are answered by the authors of the biography of George Orwell, called his colleague and countryman Victor Pritchett the most original of his contemporaries.