2010/17

Arthur Koestler: Dialogue with Death (215p. in the first American print)

Arthur Koestler’s Dialogue with Death was written in German, and first published in French (1937), as the second part of L’Espagne Ensanglantée (Spanish Testament). The first part is a communist manifesto. The second part was eventually decoupled and subsequently published as Dialogue with Death.

It is the chronicle of Koestler’s time in a Seville jail, after having been captured by Franco’s forces in Malaga, all this of course during Spain’s Civil War, the prelude to the European Apocalypse. Koestler later recycled these jail experiences in his classic Darkness at Noon.

My 3rd book on the Spanish Civil War, after Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia and Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls.

For the fans really…

Consul still not come. Carlos still not released. Byron has begun to write poetry and put Basque folk-tales into verse. He admires the Basques and despises the Andalusians. He loves talking in aphorisms and said to-day, twirling his little moustache: “Andalusia, my friend, is the scrotum of Africa, while the Basque country is the heart of Spain.” I said it was a fine definition.