Posted on September 24, 2019 at 2:02 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
The original version of a hugely influential indictment of Stalinism, lost for decades, has now been professionally translated into English.
Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler was hastily translated by the author’s girlfriend, who was working under the pressures and limitations of wartime Europe.
The Guardian reports that the version discovered a few years ago by a German graduate student includes some last-minute revisions that weren’t in the copy Koestler’s girlfriend translated.
Nevertheless, the 1940 version was a bestseller and earned praise from such literary heavyweights as George Orwell.
Koestler wrote Darkness at Noon after he quit the Communist Party, disillusioned by Joseph Stalin’s purges.
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Categories: Today in Books