Darkness at Noon [Mass Market Paperback]

"A remarkable book. A grimly fascinating interpretation of the logic of the Russian revolution, indeed of all revolutionary dictatorships, and at the same time a tense and subtly intellectualized drama."

-- "The Times Literary Supplement" (London) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

'One of the few books written in this epoch which will survive it' New Statesman --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Darkness At Noon stands as an unequaled fictional portrayal of the nightmare politics of our time. Its hero is an aging revolutionary, imprisoned and psychologically tortured by the Party to which he has dedicated his life. As the pressure to confess preposterous crimes increases, he re-lives a career that embodies the terrible ironies and human betrayals of a totalitarian movement masking itself as an instrument of deliverance. Almost unbearably vivid in its depiction of one man's solitary agony, Darkness At Noon asks questions about ends and means that have relevance not only for the past but for the perilous present. It is—as the Times Literary Supplement has declared—"A remarkable book, a grimly fascinating interpretation of the logic of the Russian Revolution, indeed of all revolutionary dictatorships, and at the same time a tense and subtly intellectualized drama..."

'One of the few books written in this epoch which will survive it' New Statesman --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Arthur Koestler was born in Budapest in 1905. He attended the university of Vienna before working as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East, Berlin and Paris. For six years he was an active member of the Communist Party, and was captured by Franco in the Spanish Civil War. In 1940 he came to England. He wrote The Gladiators in Hungarian, Darkness at Noon in German, and Arrival and Departure in English. He set up the Arthur Koestler Award (now the Koestler Trust) which awards prizes for creative achievements to prisoners, detainees and patients in special hospitals. He died in 1983 by suicide, having frequently expressed a belief in the right to euthanasia. (20041129) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.