Dialogue with Death: The Journal of a Prisoner of the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War - Softcover

Koestler, Arthur

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226449610 ISBN 13: 9780226449616

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2011

Synopsis

In 1937 during the Spanish Civil War, Arthur Koestler, a German exile writing for a British newspaper, was arrested by Nationalist forces in Málaga. He was then sentenced to execution and spent every day awaiting death—only to be released three months later under pressure from the British government. Out of this experience, Koestler wrote Darkness at Noon, his most acclaimed work in the United States, about a man arrested and executed in a Communist prison.

Dialogue with Death is Koestler’s riveting account of the fall of Málaga to rebel forces, his surreal arrest, and his three months facing death from a prison cell. Despite the harrowing circumstances, Koestler manages to convey the stress of uncertainty, fear, and deprivation of human contact with the keen eye of a reporter.

About this title

About the Author

Arthur Koestler (1905-1983) was a prolific and controversial Hungarian-born writer whose most famous work in the U.S. is Darkness at Noon. Koestler was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire and a Companion of Literature in the early 1970s.

Review

"Koestler's harrowing memoir of his three months behind bars with the constant threat of execution inspired his iconic Darkness at Noon. Dialogue with Death is the more lasting book for its lucid, exact, and unrelenting depiction of an imprisoned man on the verge of death." (Lucas Wittmann Newsweek)

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0226449610
• ISBN 13: 9780226449616
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 232