Orwell - George Orwell

British novelist and critic. His real name was Eric Blair. He was born in India as the son of a customs officer, and returned to the UK at the age of eight. He attended boarding school with reduced tuition fees and graduated from Eton College on a scholarship, but instead of going to university he immediately became a police officer in Burma (Myanmar), where he experienced the reality of colonial rule. With a sense of atonement, he lived a life of poverty in Paris and London, and then worked as a teacher and bookseller while publishing his autobiographical reportage, The Fall of Paris and London (1933), and Burmese Days (1934), which depicts the downfall of conscientious whites brought about by the colonial system. Around this time he became a socialist, and wrote a reportage of an unemployed coal mining region, The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), for the Left Book Club. He participated in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side from 1936, but was injured. His Catalan Anthem (1938) is a book that reports on and denounces the fierce internal struggle that took place there. During World War II, he was in charge of the BBC's Far East propaganda broadcasts. During the war, he had already written Animal Farm, a bestiary that sharply caricatured the Stalinist regime of the Soviet Union, an ally of the Soviet Union. It was published in 1945, just after the war, and he became an instant best-selling author. That same year, he lost his wife, and his chronic tuberculosis worsened, leading to his hospitalization in London. It was there that he completed 1984 (1949), a futuristic novel depicting a world in which all aspects of human life, including language and thought, are dominated by totalitarianism. These last two works are important works of literature that criticize and satirize the totalitarian tendencies of modern society, but at their roots lie a very British and common-sense ideological tradition. He was also an outstanding essayist who confronted the problems of his time with cutting-edge insight, and especially after the Spanish Civil War, he published many excellent critical essays from a flexible and resilient position that was anti-totalitarian but did not succumb to mere conservatism. Most of these were compiled posthumously in a four-volume collection of essays.

[Kenzo Suzuki]

"The Collected Works of Orwell, translated by Shunsuke Tsurumi et al., 4 volumes (1971, Heibonsha)" ▽ "The Collected Essays on Orwell, edited and translated by Ken Onodera (Iwanami Bunko)"

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

イギリスの小説家、批評家。本名エリック・ブレア。税関吏の息子としてインドに生まれ、8歳で帰国。授業料減額で寄宿学校に入り、奨学金でイートン校を卒業したが、大学に進まずにただちにビルマ（ミャンマー）の警察官となり、植民地の実態を経験。その贖罪(しょくざい)意識もあって自らパリ、ロンドンで窮乏生活に身を投じたのち、教師、書店員などをしながら自伝的ルポルタージュ『パリ、ロンドン零落記』（1933）や、植民地制度がもたらす良心的白人の破滅を描いた『ビルマの日々』（1934）などを発表。このころから社会主義者となり、「左翼ブッククラブ」のために失業炭鉱地域のルポルタージュ『ウィガン波止場への道』（1937）を書いた。1936年からスペイン内戦に共和側として参加したが負傷。『カタロニア讃歌(さんか)』（1938）はここで行われた激しい内部闘争の実態の報告、糾弾の書である。第二次世界大戦中はBBCで極東宣伝放送を担当した。戦争中にすでに同盟国ソ連のスターリン体制を鋭く戯画化した動物寓話(ぐうわ)『動物農場』を執筆、戦争直後の1945年に出版、一躍ベストセラー作家となった。この年妻を失い、彼自身も宿痾(しゅくあ)の肺結核が悪化してロンドンの病院に入院し、ここで、言語、思考までを含めた人間のすべての生活が全体主義に支配された世界を描いた未来小説『一九八四年』（1949）を完成した。この最後の2作は現代社会の全体主義的傾向を批判、風刺した文学として重要なものであるが、その根にあるものはきわめてイギリス的で良識的な思想伝統である。彼はまた時代の問題と先鋭に格闘した優れたエッセイストであり、とくにスペイン内戦以後は、反全体主義的ではあるが単なる保守主義に堕さない柔軟かつ強靭(きょうじん)な立場から、数多くの優れた評論を精力的に発表した。これらの大部分は死後四巻本の評論集にまとめられている。

［鈴木建三］

『鶴見俊輔他訳『オーウェル著作集』全4巻（1971・平凡社）』▽『小野寺健編・訳『オーウェル評論集』（岩波文庫）』

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