Nineteen eighty-four - George Orwell

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'

'Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past'

Hidden
away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth,
Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the
Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives
in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the
all-seeing telescreens and the watchful eye of Big Brother, symbolic
head of the Party. In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a
secret love affair with a fellow-worker Julia, but soon discovers the
true price of freedom is betrayal.

George Orwell's dystopian masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four is perhaps the most pervasively influential book of the twentieth century.