GEORGE ORWELL (1903–1950), the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, was an English novelist, essayist, and critic. He was born in India and educated at Eton. After service with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, he returned to Europe to earn his living by writing and became notable for his simplicity of style and his journalistic or documentary approach to fiction.
SIMON PREBBLE, a British-born performer, is a stage and television actor and veteran narrator of some three hundred audiobooks. As one of AudioFile's Golden Voices, he has received over twenty Earphones Awards and won the prestigious Audie® in 2010. He lives in New York.