Publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopian novel by the English writer George Orwell, published in London by Secker & Warburg shortly before his death. It follows Winston Smith, a minor official in a totalitarian state called Oceania, where the ruling Party, led by the figure known as Big Brother, watches every citizen through telescreens, rewrites history and controls thought through the language Newspeak. Written in the shadow of Nazism and Stalinism, the book became a landmark of political fiction. Terms such as Big Brother, doublethink and thoughtcrime entered everyday English, and the novel is still cited in debates about surveillance, propaganda and authoritarian power.

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