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 in East Kilbride, then a small village in the countryside, on the outskirts of Glasgow. Tuberculosis was diagnosed and the request for permission to import streptomycin to treat Orwell went as far as Aneurin Bevan, then Minister of Health. David Astor helped with supply and payment and Orwell began his course of streptomycin on 19 or 20 February 1948. By the end of July 1948 Orwell was able to return to Jura and by December he had finished the manuscript of "Nineteen Eighty-Four". In January 1949, in a very weak condition, he set off for a sanatorium at Cranham, Gloucestershire,