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Darkness At Noon
''Darkness at Noon'' (, ) is a novel by Austrian-Hungarian-born novelist Arthur Koestler, first published in 1940. His best known work, it is the tale of Rubashov, an Old Bolshevik who is arrested, imprisoned, and tried for treason against the government that he helped to create. The novel is set between 1938 and 1940, after the Great Purge and Moscow show trials. Despite being based on real events, the novel does not name either Russia or the Soviet Union, Soviets, and tends to use generic terms to describe people and organizations; for example, the Soviet government is referred to as "the Party" and Nazi Germany is referred to as "the Dictatorship". Joseph Stalin is represented by "Number One", a menacing dictator. The novel expresses the author's disillusionment with Bolshevism, Stalinism, and the ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at the outset of World War II. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked ''Darkness at Noon'' number eight on its list of the Modern Li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler (, ; ; ; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was an Austria-Hungary, Austro-Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest, and was educated in Austria, apart from his early school years. In 1931, Koestler joined the Communist Party of Germany but resigned in 1938 after becoming disillusioned with Stalinism. Having moved to Britain in 1940, Koestler published his novel ''Darkness at Noon'', an anti-totalitarian work that gained him international fame. Over the next 43 years, Koestler espoused many political causes and wrote novels, memoirs, biographies, and numerous essays. In 1949, Koestler began secretly working with a British Cold War anti-communist propaganda department known as the Information Research Department (IRD), which would republish and distribute many of his works, and also fund his activities. In 1968, he was awarded the Sonning Prize "for [his] outstanding contribution to European culture". In 1972, he was made a Order of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modern Library's 100 Best Novels
Modern Library's 100 Best Novels is a 1998 list of the best English-language novels published during the 20th century, as selected by the American publishing imprint, Modern Library, from among 400 novels published by Random House, which owns Modern Library. The purpose of the list was to "bring the Modern Library to public attention" and stimulate sales of its books. A separate Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction list of the 100 best non-fiction books of the 20th century was created the same year. Editors' list During early 1998, the Modern Library polled its editorial board to find their opinions of the best 100 novels. The board of review consisted of Daniel J. Boorstin, A. S. Byatt, Christopher Cerf, Shelby Foote, Vartan Gregorian, Edmund Morris, John Richardson, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., William Styron and Gore Vidal. All but Gregorian were published by Random House or an affiliate. '' Ulysses'' by James Joyce topped the list, followed by F. Scott Fitzgerald's '' Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kafkaesque
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastique, and typically features isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surreal predicaments and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers. It has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity. His best-known works include the novella '' The Metamorphosis'' (1915) and the novels '' The Trial'' (1924) and '' The Castle'' (1926). The term '' Kafkaesque'' has entered the English lexicon to describe bizarre situations like those depicted in his writing. Kafka was born into a middle-class German- and Yiddish-speaking Czech Jewish family in Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, which belonged to the Austrian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now the capital of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Invisible Writing
''The Invisible Writing: The Second Volume Of An Autobiography, 1932-40'' (1954) is a book by Arthur Koestler.Ambrose Ambrose, Peter Peter John John, and P. Calvocoressi. "Spiritual Odyssey." The Times Literary Supplement, no. 2735, 2 July 1954, p. 419. It follows on from '' Arrow in the Blue'', published two years earlier, and which described his life from his birth in 1905, to 1931, and deals with a much shorter period, a mere eight years (as opposed to the twenty six of the previous volume). This was nonetheless, a highly significant period in Koestler's life, as it involved his membership and subsequent alienation from the Communist movement. As well as his relationship with Communism, ''The Invisible Writing'' is also interesting for its documentation of Europe in the years leading up to World War II, both his native Hungary and Austria, Germany, and also the west, such as Spain, France and England. In ''The Invisible Writing'', Koestler recalls that during the summer of 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Boehm
Philip Boehm (born 1958) is an American playwright, theater director and literary translator. Born in Texas, he was educated at Wesleyan University, Washington University in St. Louis, and the State Academy of Theater in Warsaw, Poland. Boehm is the founder of Upstream Theater in St. Louis, Upstream Theater, Kranzberg Arts Center, St. Louis, MO. which has become known for its productions of foreign plays. Fluent in English, German and Polish, he has directed plays in and . His own written work includes several plays such as ''Mixtitlan'', ''Soul of a Clone'', ''The Death of Atahualpa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Scammell
Michael Scammell (born 1935) is an English author, biographer and translator of Slavic literature. Education Michael Scammell was born in Lyndhurst, Hampshire, England, attended Brockenhurst Grammar School, and after two years working as a copy boy for the ''Southern Daily Echo'' in Southampton, was drafted into the British army, spending most of his time at the Joint Services School for Linguists in Cambridge and Bodmin, where he was trained as a Russian interpreter. In 1958 he earned a B.A. degree with first class honors in Slavic Studies from the University of Nottingham, and edited the student newspaper, ''The Gongster''. Having spent a year teaching English at the University of Ljubljana in the former Yugoslavia, he attended graduate school at Columbia University and later obtained his doctorate in Slavic Studies. Career Translations While in graduate school, Scammell taught Russian Literature at Hunter College and began translating books from Russian. His first translat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Kassel
The University of Kassel () is a university founded in 1971 located in Kassel, Hessen, in central Germany. As of February 2022 it had about 25,000 students and about 3300 staff, including more than 300 professors. A special unit (Studienkolleg) prepares international students for their period of study (language and academic skills). International students come from over 115 countries. Each academic year, more than 100 visiting scholars pursue research projects in cooperation with colleagues from the University of Kassel, making a valuable contribution to the academic and cultural life. The newly established International House is located on the campus. It offers hostels for international guests and is available for meetings, conferences, and cultural events. Precincts In addition to the central campus Holländischer Platz, the University of Kassel has the other campuses Heinrich-Plett-Straße, Menzelstraße, Wilhelmshöher Allee and Damaschkestraße in Kassel as well as tw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape is a British publishing firm headquartered in London and founded in 1921 by Herbert Jonathan Cape, who was head of the firm until his death. Cape and his business partner Wren Howard (1893–1968) set up the publishing house in 1921. They established a reputation for high-quality design and production and a fine list of English-language authors, fostered by the firm's editor and publisher's reader, reader Edward Garnett. Cape's list of writers ranged from poets including Robert Frost and C. Day Lewis, to children's authors such as Roald Dahl, Hugh Lofting and Arthur Ransome, to James Bond novels by Ian Fleming, to heavyweight fiction by James Joyce and T. E. Lawrence. After Cape's death, the firm later merged successively with three other London publishing houses. In 1987 it was taken over by Random House. Its name continues as one of Random House's British Imprint (trade name), imprints. Cape – biography Early years Herbert Jonathan Cape was born in London o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rupert Hart-Davis
Sir Rupert Charles Hart-Davis (28 August 1907 – 8 December 1999) was an English publisher and editor. He founded the publishing company Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd. As a biographer, he is remembered for his ''Hugh Walpole'' (1952), as an editor, for his ''Collected Letters of Oscar Wilde'' (1962), and, as both editor and part-author, for the '' Lyttelton/Hart-Davis Letters''. Working at a publishing firm before the Second World War, Hart-Davis began to forge literary relationships that would be important later in his career. Founding his publishing company in 1946, Hart-Davis was praised for the quality of the firm's publications and production; but he refused to cater to public tastes, and the firm eventually lost money. After relinquishing control of the firm, Hart-Davis concentrated on writing and editing, producing collections of letters and other works which brought him the sobriquet "the king of editors". Biography Early years Hart-Davis was born in Kensington, London. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daphne Hardy Henrion
Daphne Hardy Henrion (20 October 1917 – 31 October 2003) was a British sculptor, a member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors and an intimate of the writer Arthur Koestler. Life She was born Daphne Hardy in 1917 in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, to Major Clive Hardy, a diplomat and translator at the International Court of Justice, and his wife Judith. Between 1923 and 1931 she was educated in The Hague, at French and German schools. She left school aged 14 to study art privately in the Netherlands for a year with Marian Gobius and . From 1934 to 1937 she attended the Royal Academy Schools in London. In 1937 she won the school's gold medal and travelling scholarship which took her in 1938 to France and Italy. In the summer of 1939 in Paris, through mutual friends she met the Hungarian writer Arthur Koestler and they became close. Her life with him just before and after the outbreak of the Second World War is described in Koestler's autobiography '' Scum of the Earth'' in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alpes-Maritimes
Alpes-Maritimes (; ; ; ) is a Departments of France, department of France located in the country's southeast corner, on the France–Italy border, Italian border and Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast. Part of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region, it encompasses the French Riviera alongside neighbouring Var (department), Var. Alpes-Maritimes had a population of 1,094,283 in 2019.Populations légales 2019: 06 Alpes-Maritimes INSEE Its Prefectures in France, prefecture (and largest city) is Nice, with Grasse as the sole Subprefectures in France, subprefecture. Alpes-Maritimes has become one of the world's most attractive tourist destinations in recent decades, featuring renowned cities and towns such as Nice, Grasse, Cannes, Antibes, Menton, Èze, Roquebrune-Ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belvédère
Belvédère (; ; ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Vésubie valley north of Nice in the Alpes-Maritimes Departments of France, department in southeastern France. The village of Belvédère is located at the entrance of the Gordolasque valley on the edge of the Mercantour National Park. Over its history the Commune of Belvédère has been part of the Kingdom of Burgundy, the Kingdom of Sardinia, the First French Empire, the Duchy of Savoy and since 1860 modern France. The last battle on French soil in the Second World War, the Battle of Authion, was fought on the hills above the village. The world famous novel ''Darkness at Noon'' was completed in a villa nearby and the television series ''Belle and Sebastian (1965 TV series), Belle and Sebastian'' was shot in and around the village. History The Bronze Age Belvédère lies immediately to the west of Mont Bégo, known as the sacred mountain in Mercantour National Park. For thousands of years, from the Stone Age till t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
