11020 Orwell 1979, extending the body's observation arc by 5 years prior to its official discovery observation at Klet. According to the survey carried out by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, "Orwell" measures 14.466 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.089. It has an absolute magnitude of 12.6. As of 2017, "Orwell"s spectral type, as well as its rotation period and shape remain unknown. This minor planet was named for British writer Eric Blair (1903–1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, who is associated with the year of the object's discovery,
George Orwell stated that "a real Socialist is one who wishes – not merely conceives it as desirable, but actively wishes – to see tyranny overthrown." Orwell stated in "Why I Write" (1946): "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." Orwell was a proponent of a federal socialist Europe, a position outlined in his 1947 essay "Toward European Unity," which first appeared in "Partisan Review". According to biographer John Newsinger: In his 1938 essay "Why I joined the Independent Labour Party," published