Arthur Koestler

Arthur Koestler (September 5, 1905 - March 3, 1983) was a journalist, novelist, political activist, and social philosopher. He was the author of many popular books including Arrow in the Blue, (Volume I of his autobiography), The Yogi and the Commissar (a collection of essays, many dealing with Communism), The Sleepwalkers, The Act of Creation, and The Thirteenth Tribe. His most famous work is Darkness at Noon, a novel about the Purges of the Soviet state during the Stalin era.

Cultural influence

• In his younger days, the singer Sting was an avid reader of Koestler. His band of the time, The Police were to name one of their albums Ghost in the Machine after one of Koestler's books. The title Synchronicity was also inspired by Koestler's The Roots of Coincidence, which mentions Carl Jung's theory of the same name. Koestler knew little about the burgeoning New Wave scene, and is alleged to have said:

Look at this. Did you ever see a magazine called the New Musical Express? It turns out there is a pop group called The Police - I don't know why they are called that, presumably to distinguish them from the punks - and they've made an album of my essay The Ghost in the Machine. I didn't know anything about it until my clipping agency sent me a review of the record.

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• The cyberpunk manga and anime series Ghost in the Shell was inspired by Koestler's essay The Ghost in the Machine.