Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler CBE (UK: /ˈkɜːstlər/, US: /ˈkɛst-/; German: [ˈkœstlɐ]; Hungarian: Kösztler Artúr; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was a Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria. In 1931, Koestler joined the Communist Party of Germany, but he resigned in 1938 after becoming disillusioned with Stalinism.
For the book by Mark Levene, see Arthur Koestler (book).
Arthur Koestler
Kösztler Artúr
5 September 1905
Budapest, Austria-Hungary
1 March 1983 (aged 77)
London, United Kingdom
Novelist, essayist, journalist
1934–1983
Fiction, non-fiction, history, autobiography, politics, philosophy, psychology, parapsychology, science
- Sonning Prize (1968)
- CBE (1972)
- Dorothy Ascher (1935–1950)
- Mamaine Paget (1950–1952)
- Cynthia Jefferies[1] (1965–1983)
Having moved to Britain in 1940, he published his novel Darkness at Noon, an anti-totalitarian work that gained him international fame. Over the next 43 years, Koestler espoused many political causes and wrote novels, memoirs, biographies, and numerous essays. In 1949, Koestler began secretly working with a British Cold War anti-communist propaganda department known as the Information Research Department (IRD), which would republish and distribute many of his works, and also fund his activities.[2][3] In 1968, he was awarded the Sonning Prize "for [his] outstanding contribution to European culture". In 1972, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
In 1976, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and in 1979 with terminal leukaemia.[4][5] On 1 March 1983, Koestler and his wife Cynthia died of suicide together at their London home by swallowing lethal quantities of barbiturate-based Tuinal capsules.
Collaboration with the Information Research Department[edit]
Much of Arthur Koestler's work was funded and distributed secretly by a covert propaganda wing of the UK Foreign Office, known as the Information Research Department (IRD). Koestler enjoyed strong personal relationships with IRD agents from 1949 onwards, and was supportive of the department's anti-communist goals. Koestler's relationship with the British government was so strong that he had become a de facto advisor to British propagandists, urging them to create a popular series of anti-communist left-wing literature to rival the success of the Left Book Club.[2][3]
Languages[edit]
Koestler first learned Hungarian, but later his family spoke mostly German at home. From his early years he became fluent in both languages. It is likely that he picked up some Yiddish too, through contact with his grandfather.[106] By his teens he was fluent in Hungarian, German, French and English.[107]
During his years in Palestine Koestler became sufficiently fluent in Hebrew to write stories in that language, as well as to create what is believed to have been the world's first Hebrew crossword puzzle.[108] During his years in the Soviet Union (1932–33), although he arrived with a vocabulary of only 1,000 words of Russian, and no grammar, he picked up enough colloquial Russian to speak the language.[109]
Koestler wrote his books in German up to 1940, but then wrote only in English. (L'Espagne ensanglantée was translated into French from German.[110])
Koestler is said to have coined the word mimophant to describe Bobby Fischer.[111][112]
Quotes[edit]
"Liking a writer and then meeting the writer is like liking goose liver and then meeting the goose".[113]
In August 1945 Koestler was in Palestine where he read in the Palestine Post about the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. "That's the end of the world war", he said to a friend, "and it is also the beginning of the end of the world."[114]
Key to abbreviations used for frequently quoted sources