Book Review | Animal Farm
George ORWELL was born in 1903 in Montihari, Bengal, India. After returning to England with his family, he completed his education at Eton College. Orwell, whose real name was Eric Arthur, served as an Indian Imperial Policeman between 1922-27. However, he resigned when he saw the true nature of the imperial method. His book, To Shoot an Elephant, published in 1950, is a collection of articles criticizing the behavior of colonial officials. Animal Farm, written towards the end of World War II, is a harsh satire against the Stalin regime. One of Orwell’s best-known works, Nineteen Eighty-Four, is not only one of the classic examples of the science fiction genre, but also a novel protesting the modern world. Burmese Days is Orwell’s first book in which he addressed British colonialism in Burma (today’s Myanmar). Orwell died in London in 1950. Celal ÜSTER was born in Istanbul in 1947. He studied at the English Boys High School, Robert Academy and Istanbul University Faculty of Letters, Department of English Language and Literature. His first translations were published in Yeni Dergi. In 1983, he was awarded the Azra Erhat Award by Yazko Çeviri magazine for his translation of George Thomson’s work, The Prehistoric Aegean. He has translated the works of many writers from Yaroslav Haşek to George Orwell, D.H. Lawrance to Iris Murdoch, Juan Rulfo to Jorge Luis Borges, Mario Vargas Llosa to John Berger, Paulo Coelho to Roald Dahl into our language.
Subject of the Book
Animal Farm (originally titled Animal Farm) is a political satire novel written in a metaphorical language and in the fable style by George Orwell. The novel was first published in the United Kingdom in 1945. In 1996, it received the Retro Hugo Award for past dates for 1946.
The novel is a critique of Stalinism. Orwell, a leftist against totalitarianism, tells the important events that took place since the foundation of the USSR in this novel with black humor and metaphorical language.
Animal Farm had a great impact and received positive reviews. Although it was a critique of Stalinism, it was censored in the United Kingdom, which did not want to anger its allies during World War II. It is claimed that the CIA changed the novel during the filming of the cartoon. The novel was made into a film in 1999, this time with a script more faithful to its subject.
Animal Farm inspired Pink Floyd’s album Animals.
Animal Farm was first published in Turkey in 1954 by the Ministry of National Education, which was then called the Ministry of Education, with Halide Edib Adıvar’s Turkish translation. The second edition of the book was published in 1966.
The English edition of the novel was taught in English classes at Maarif Colleges, which are foreign language state schools in Turkey, in the 1970s.
