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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] |
