title: Finding George Orwell in Burma
author:  Emma Larkin 
description: "Well-researched and fascinating...Remarkable."<b><i>&mdash;San Francisco Chronicle</i></b>
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  **PENGUIN BOOKS**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell) was born in 1903 in India, where
  
  
  his father worked for the Civil Service. The family moved to England in 1907
  and in
  
  
  1917 Orwell entered Eton, where he contributed regularly to the various
  college
  
  
  magazines. From 1922 to 1927 he served with the Indian Imperial Police in
  Burma, an
  
  
  experience that inspired his first novel, _Burmese Days_ (1934). Several
  
  
  years of poverty followed. He lived in Paris for two years before returning to
  
  
  England, where he worked successively as a private tutor, schoolteacher and
  bookshop
  
  
  assistant, and contributed reviews and articles to a number of periodicals.
  _Down
  
  
  and Out in Paris and London_ was published in 1933. In 1936 he was
  
  
  commissioned by Victor Gollancz to visit areas of mass unemployment in
  Lancashire
  
  
  and Yorkshire, and _The Road to Wigan Pier_ (1937) is a powerful description
  
  
  of the poverty he saw there. At the end of 1936 Orwell went to Sp