 English novelist, essayist, and critic, Orwell (pen name of Eric Arthur Blair) was born in India where his father was in the civil service. He won a scholarship to Eton but was financially unable to go on to Oxford or Cambridge. Instead he spent five years with the Imperial Police in Burma. His experiences there provided the background for his Burmese Days, an attack on British Imperialism. "Homage To Catalonia" expresses Orwell s disillusionment during the Spanish Civil War, in which he fought on the Republican side. After this point, Orwell said all of his writings were directed against totalitarianism in all forms. This commitment is manifest in his two greatest novels, "Animal Farm" and "1984".