Sonia Orwell Sonia Orwell Sonia Mary Brownell (25 August 1918 – 11 December 1980), better known as Sonia Orwell, was the second and last wife of writer George Orwell, whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair. Sonia is believed to be the model for Julia, the heroine of "Nineteen Eighty-Four". Brownell was born in Calcutta, the daughter of a British colonial official. Her father died when she was four years old. When she was six, she was sent to the Sacred Heart Convent in Roehampton (now part of Roehampton University), in England. She left at 17 and, after learning French in Switzerland,
George Orwell living conditions of the poor in northern England, and class division generally) and "Homage to Catalonia". According to Irving Howe, Orwell was "the best English essayist since Hazlitt, perhaps since Dr Johnson." Modern readers are more often introduced to Orwell as a novelist, particularly through his enormously successful titles "Animal Farm" and "Nineteen Eighty-Four". The former is often thought to reflect degeneration in the Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution and the rise of Stalinism; the latter, life under totalitarian rule. "Nineteen Eighty-Four" is often compared to "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley; both are powerful dystopian novels warning of