On this day in 1945 the novella ‘Animal Farm’ by George Orwell is first published.

2 comments

1. The book concerns a group of barnyard animals who overthrow and chase off their exploitative human masters and set up an egalitarian society of their own.

   Eventually the animals’ intelligent and power-loving leaders, the pigs, subvert the revolution. Concluding that “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”, the pigs form a dictatorship even more oppressive and heartless than that of their former human masters.

   Consequently, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon, the farm ends up in a state far worse than before.

   It is a political fable based on the events of Russia’s Bolshevik revolution. In Orwell’s own words

   >a satirical tale against Stalin (“un conte satirique contre Staline”)

2. To this day this is my favourite „school required” book to read. We were „forced” to read it for school but it turned into a great read.