''Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million'' is a 2002 non-fiction book by British writer Martin Amis.

Summary

The book is a study of the depredations of the regime of

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

in the Soviet Union from the 1920s to the 1950s. The title alludes to Stalin's nickname "Koba", and the estimated 20 million deaths in the Soviet Union during Stalin's rule owing to starvation, torture,

gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...

s, and the purges and confessions of Stalin's

Great Terror The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...

. The estimate of deaths under Stalin comes from

Robert Conquest George Robert Acworth Conquest (15 July 1917 – 3 August 2015) was a British historian and poet. A long-time research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, Conquest was most notable for his work on the Soviet Union. His books ...

's work, a key source for Amis.

Reception

The book received a mixed reception. In ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', critic

Michiko Kakutani Michiko Kakutani (born January 9, 1955) is an American writer and retired literary critic, best known for reviewing books for ''The New York Times'' from 1983 to 2017. In that role, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1998. Early life ...

described the book as, "The narcissistic musings of a spoiled, upper-middle class litterateur who has never known the kind of real suffering Stalin's victims did." ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

'' found that Amis "relates passionately a story that needs to be told, the history of a regime that murdered its own people in order to build a better future for them." Author

Anne Applebaum Anne Elizabeth Applebaum (born July 25, 1964) is an American journalist and historian. She has written extensively about the history of Communism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. She has worked at ''The Econ ...

, writing in Slate, claimed that "Koba the Dread is not, in fact, a competent account of Stalin's reign but rather a muddled misrendering of both Soviet and Western intellectual history." The Leningrad-born American writer

Gary Shteyngart Gary Shteyngart (; born July 5, 1972) is a Soviet-born American writer. He is the author of five novels (including ''Absurdistan'' and '' Super Sad True Love Story'') and a memoir. Much of his work is satirical. Early life Born Igor Semyonovich ...

called ''Koba'' "harrowing and strangely funny" in ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', explaining, "'Koba the Dread' is not easy to forget. Along with the laughter it offers the reader unfamiliar with Stalin's legacy a number that is the first step in understanding Russia's modern tragedy. That number, once again, is twenty million." In ''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'', writer and critic

Paul Berman Paul Lawrence Berman (born 1949) is an American writer on politics and literature. His books include ''Terror and Liberalism'' ( a ''New York Times'' best-seller in 2003), ''The Flight of the Intellectuals'', ''A Tale of Two Utopias'', ''Power and ...

called the work "one of the oddest books about Stalin ever written, indignant, angry, personal and strangely touching... mis'sbook carries a punch, artfully delivered—a punch that comes from looking at death and finding in it nothing but pain, cruelty, sadness, pointlessness and loss, a punch that comes from gazing at the indescribably horrific prison camps of the Soviet Union, or that comes from watching one's father and sister die." The book received scathing reviews in the UK. Historian

Orlando Figes Orlando Guy Figes () is a British historian and writer. Until his retirement, he was Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. Figes is known for his works on Russian history, such as '' A People's Tragedy'' (1996), ''Nata ...

criticised Amis for, amongst other things, comparing the crying of his six-month daughter with the cries from Butyrki Prison in Moscow during the Great Terror.

Controversy

The book occasioned a public schism between Amis and fellow writer and close friend

Christopher Hitchens Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British-American author and journalist who wrote or edited over 30 books (including five essay collections) on culture, politics, and literature. Born and educated in England, ...

, especially in the pages of ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

''. The break was later mended.Amis, Martin, "Amis On Hitchens,"

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...

, 24 April 2011.

References

External links

Christopher Hitchens on ''Koba the Dread''
*

writing for ''Slate'' on Amis and Hitchens
The Gulag Argumento

''The Sunday Times'': Amis and Hitchens
(paywalled)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million Books by Martin Amis Books about Joseph Stalin 2002 non-fiction books

Summary

Reception

Controversy

See also

References

External links