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.

Life

Koestler was born in Budapest, Hungary as Artur Kösztler, to a German speaking Hungarian Jewish family. His father, Henrik, was an industrialist and inventor whose investments and ideas often showed a lack of good financial judgement; for example, he invested in a kind of radioactive soap.

Related Topics:
Budapest - Hungary - German speaking - Jew - Radioactive

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He later studied science and psychology at the University of Vienna, where he became involved in Zionism. After college he worked as a news correspondent. From 1926 to 1929 he lived in the British Mandate of Palestine. He joined the Communist Party in 1931, but left it after the Stalinist purges of 1938. He spent this period travelling within the Soviet Union, reaching areas as far flung as Mount Ararat, in the Caucasus and Turkmenistan where he met the black American writer Langston Hughes.

Related Topics:
University of Vienna - Zionism - 1926 - 1929 - British Mandate of Palestine - Communist Party - 1931 - Stalin - 1938 - Soviet Union - Mount Ararat - Caucasus - Turkmenistan - Langston Hughes

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Arthur Koestler recalls in his memoirs that in the summer of 1935 he "wrote about half of a satirical novel called The Good Soldier Schweik Goes to War Again.... It had been commissioned by Willy Münzenberg ... but was vetoed by the Party on the grounds of the book's 'pacifist errors'" (The Invisible Writing: An Autobiography by Arthur Koestler , p. 283).

Related Topics:
The Good Soldier Schweik Goes to War Again.... - Willy Münzenberg

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While covering the Spanish Civil War, he was captured and held for several months by the Falangists in Málaga, until the British Foreign Office managed to arrange for his release. He recorded his experiences in Spanish Testament and used them as a part basis for his prison novel Darkness at Noon.

Related Topics:
Spanish Civil War - Falangists - Málaga - British - Spanish Testament - Darkness at Noon

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After spending time in a Vichy French detention camp, at Le Vernet, he joined the French Foreign Legion. He then escaped to England and joined the British Army as a member of the British Pioneer Corps between 1941-42, employed by the BBC. He became a British subject in 1945. He returned to France after the war, and there got to know Jean-Paul Sartre, although it appears they never became good friends.

Related Topics:
Vichy French - French Foreign Legion - England - British Army - BBC - 1945 - Jean-Paul Sartre

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During the postwar period, Koestler anticipated a number of trends by many years. He was amongst the first to experiment (in a laboratory) with LSD, and also advocated nuclear disarmament. He also wrote about Japanese and Indian mysticism in The Lotus and the Robot in 1960. However, just as the Cold War was beginning to accelerate at the end of the 1950s, and Darkness at Noon was gaining popularity, Koestler announced he would be retiring from politics.

Related Topics:
LSD - Nuclear disarmament - Japanese - Indian - The Lotus and the Robot - 1960 - Cold War - 1950s

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He then lived in London, where he made his living writing and lecturing. He was made a CBE in the '70s.

Related Topics:
London - CBE

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Koestler, an advocate of euthanasia, and suffering from Parkinson's disease, took his own life along with his third wife, Cynthia, in a joint suicide in England.

Related Topics:
Euthanasia - Parkinson's disease - Suicide

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Koestler's multilingualism

Koestler was fluent in Hungarian, German, English, and French and knew a little Hebrew and Russian. There is some evidence (according to Cesarani) that he had also been exposed to Yiddish through his grandfather who was a speaker. This was partially due to his family life, and constant uprooting, at first due to circumstances and later due to choice. During his life he lived in Hungary, Austria, Germany, Palestine (pre-independence Israel), England, Wales, France and the United States. He also spent a substantial time in the Soviet Union.

Related Topics:
Hungarian - German - English - French - Hebrew - Russian - Yiddish - Hungary - Austria - Germany - Palestine - Israel - England - Wales - France - United States - Soviet Union

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Throughout his life Koestler was to work in a variety of languages, though the bulk of his later work was in English. For example Koestler wrote his best known novels in three different languages: the original of The Gladiators was in Hungarian, Darkness at Noon in German (the original has been lost), and Arrival and Departure in English. As a journalist he was to work in German, Hebrew, French and English. He claimed to have produced the first crosswords in Hebrew.

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Koestler and women

Always the connoisseur and lover, Koestler was married three times, to Dorothy Asher (1935-50), Mamaine Paget (1950-52), and Cynthia Jefferies (1965-83). He also had a very short fling with notable French thinker Simone de Beauvoir, probably explaining the mutual animosity between Koestler and Jean-Paul Sartre. A 1998 biography claimed that Koestler had beaten and raped several women, including film director Jill Craigie. After protests, a bust of Koestler was removed from display at the University of Edinburgh.

Related Topics:
Simone de Beauvoir - Jean-Paul Sartre - 1998 - Jill Craigie - University of Edinburgh

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Further controversy has ensued over his suicide pact. Although he was terminally ill, his wife at the time was apparently healthy, and some have claimed Koestler manipulated her into it.

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