1984

The English writer, critic, publicist, and journalist George Orwell (real name Eric Arthur Blair) entered the history of literature primarily thanks to his final novel, 1984 (1948, published 1949), which, along with We by Yevgeny Zamyatin and Brave New World by A.D. Huxley, became one of the main dystopian books of the twentieth century. The author's depicted society of the future is based on the usurpation of power in the hands of one party, the only true ideology, absurd propaganda, total control of public and private life, and the violent suppression of any dissent; The novel's setting is the fictional country of Oceania in 1984, but the appearance of this state easily reflects the realities of the Soviet system of the 1930s and 1940s and other dictatorial regimes—for, according to Orwell, all dictatorships are worth each other.