In 1936, British author George Orwell (real name Eric Arthur Blair) went to the Spanish Civil War as an enthusiastic supporter of the socialist dream and a hater of fascism - he returned injured and disillusioned.
Orwell wrote about his civil war experiences in Homage to Catalonia and later stated that "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.
This fear of totalitarianism led to maybe his greatest novel, 1984 which was published 75 years ago this month, in June of 1949. Orwell died less than a year later, in January 1950.
RTÉ Arena celebrates a work that continues to resonate in our modern age - listen above.
Listen to more from RTÉ Arena here.
