Koestler, Arthur (Vol. 3) | Koestler, Arthur 1905–
Koestler, Arthur 1905–
A Hungarian-born British novelist and essayist, Koestler employs the concepts of philosophy, psychology, politics, and natural science to work toward an idealistic world-view. His novels, especially Darkness at Noon, concern the corruption of socialistic ideologies by power. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 1-4, rev. ed.)
Koestler frightened us not just because he brought in the freezing wind of totalitarian experience in Europe; he used his third language with as much confidence as Conrad; he virtually invented the 'political novel'; his intellectuality was ferocious, earnest, not just a donnish game. He humbled the British, who had taken neither ideas nor politics seriously; his gift to English literature was a horse's-mouth authenticity that no one would dream of looking into. And yet that phase of his career which these three books [Thieves in the Night, The Gladiators, and The Yogi and the...
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