Kallocain

Karin Boye

ISBN 10: 0241608309 / ISBN 13: 9780241608302

Published by Penguin Publishing Group Jun 2023, 2023

About this Item

Neuware - A pioneering work of dystopian fiction from one of Sweden's most acclaimed writersWritten midway between Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four, as the terrible events of the Second World War were unfolding, Kallocain depicts a totalitarian 'World State' which seeks to crush the individual entirely. In this desolate, paranoid landscape of 'police eyes' and 'police ears', the obedient citizen and middle-ranking scientist Leo Kall discovers a drug that will force anyone who takes it to tell the truth. But can private thought really be obliterated Karin Boye's chilling novel of creeping alienation shows the dangers of acquiescence and the power of resistance, no matter how futile.Translated with an introduction by David McDuff.

Seller Inventory # 9780241608302

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Kallocain
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group Jun 2023
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0241608309
• ISBN 13: 9780241608302
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 195W x 126H x 15D millimeters 195 millimeters width by 126 millimeters height by 15 millimeters depth
• Weight: 146 grams

About this title

Synopsis

The classic World War II–era dystopian novel, written at the midpoint between Brave New World and 1984, in its first new translation in more than fifty years

A Penguin Classic

Leo Kall is a zealous middle-ranking scientist in the totalitarian World State who has just made a thrilling discovery: a new drug, Kallocain, that will force anyone who takes it to tell the truth. At last, criminality will be dragged out into the open and private thought can finally be outlawed. But can the World State be trusted with Kallocain? For that matter, can Kall himself be trusted? Written as the terrible events of World War II were unfolding, Karin Boye’s classic dystopian novel speaks more clearly than ever of the dangers of acquiescence and the power of resistance.

For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About the Author

Karin Boye (1900–1941) was a Swedish poet and anti-fascist who translated The Waste Land into Swedish. After undergoing psychoanalysis in Berlin, she left her husband and formed a lifelong relationship with another woman, Margot Hanel. Her most famous book, Kallocain, was partly inspired by eye-opening trips to Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Boye died by suicide the year after writing it.

David McDuff (translation and introduction) is the translator of the Penguin Classics editions of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Idiot, as well as Isaac Babel's short stories.