Darkness at Noon - Softcover

Arthur Koestler

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099424916 ISBN 13: 9780099424918

Publisher: Vintage Classics, 1994

Darkness at Noon is set in an unnamed country ruled by a totalitarian government. Rubashov, once a powerful player in the regime, finds the tables turned on him when he is arrested and tried for treason. His reflections on his previous life and his experiences in prison form the heart of this moving and though-provoking masterpiece.

Review:

"A remarkable book, a grimly fascinating interpretation of...all revolutionary dictatorships, and at the same time a tense and subtly intellectualised drama of prison psychology" (Times Literary Supplement)

"[Darkness At Noon] is written from terrible experience. From knowledge of the men whose struggles of mind and body he describes. Apart from its sociological importance, it is written with a subtlety and an economy which class it as great literature. I have read it twice without feeling that I have learned more than half of what it has to offer me- Koestler approaches the problem of ends and means, of love and truth and social organisation, through the thoughts of an old Bolshevik, Rubashov, as he awaits death in a GPU prison" (New Statesman)

"Along with Animal Farm and 1984, this book formed part of the essential bookshelf of those intellectuals who repudiated their early illusions about the Soviet Union" (Christopher Hitchens The Week)

"It brilliantly portrays the chilling tyranny of Soviet Communism" (Sandy Gall The Week)

"One of the few books written in this epoch which will survive it." (New Statesman)

From the Publisher:

'One of the few books written in this epoch which will survive it' New Statesman

• Publisher: Vintage Classics
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0099424916
• ISBN 13: 9780099424918
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224