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 London to cover the 1945 general election at the beginning of July. "Animal Farm: A Fairy Story" was published in Britain on 17 August 1945, and a year later in the US, on 26 August 1946. "Animal Farm" had particular resonance in the post-war climate and its worldwide success made Orwell a sought-after figure. For the next four years, Orwell mixed journalistic work—mainly for "Tribune", "The Observer" and the "Manchester Evening News", though he also contributed to many small-circulation political and literary magazines—with writing his best-known work, "Nineteen Eighty-Four", which was published in 1949. In the year following Eileen's death