Arthur KoestlerCBE (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.
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 committed suicide together at their London home by swallowing lethal quantities of barbiturate-based Tuinal capsules.
^There is a discrepancy between the various biographers in the spelling of the surname. David Cesarani uses the spelling Jeffries, Iain Hamilton, Harold Harris; in his Introduction to Living with Koestler: Mamaine Koestler's Letters 1945–51, Celia Goodman in the same book and Mark Levene in Arthur Koestler spell it Jefferies.
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^"Arthur Koestler: Bloomsbury Publishing (US)".
^Koestler, Arthur; Koestler, Cynthia (1984). Stranger on the Square. London: Hutchinson. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-09-154330-3. Cited as "ACK".
Living with Koestler: Mamaine Koestler's Letters 1945–51 is a book about the author ArthurKoestler and Mamaine Paget, Koestler's second wife. More specifically...
by many presumably anti-communist authors including George Orwell, ArthurKoestler, Bertrand Russell, and Robert Conquest. Internationally, the IRD took...
Noon (German: Sonnenfinsternis) is a novel by Hungarian-born novelist ArthurKoestler, first published in 1940. His best known work, it is the tale of Rubashov...
in 1969 following a bequest from the British-Hungarian author, ArthurKoestler. Koestler had been detained in three jails in separate countries. In Spain...
Ghost in the Machine is a 1967 book about philosophical psychology by ArthurKoestler. The title is a phrase (see ghost in the machine) coined by the Oxford...
The Thirteenth Tribe is a 1976 book by ArthurKoestler advocating the Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry, the thesis that Ashkenazi Jews are not...
book by ArthurKoestler. It is an introduction to theories of parapsychology, including extrasensory perception and psychokinesis. Koestler postulates...
(1809–1871), English judge Arthur J. Jones (born 1948), American neo-Nazi politician Arthur Kennedy (1914–1990), American actor ArthurKoestler (1905–1983), British...
The Act of Creation is a 1964 book by ArthurKoestler. It is a study of the processes of discovery, invention, imagination and creativity in humour, science...
existed." Orwell was an admirer of ArthurKoestler and became a close friend during the three years that Koestler and his wife Mamain spent at the cottage...
was "bowled over" by Richard Llewellyn's How Green Was My Valley, ArthurKoestler's Darkness at Noon, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, R. H...
came to the attention of a much wider public with the publication of ArthurKoestler's The Thirteenth Tribe in 1976. It has been revived recently by geneticist...
Arrival and Departure (1943) is the third novel of ArthurKoestler's trilogy concerning the conflict between morality and expedience (as described in...
the meaning "Communist agent or spy", originating in the writings of ArthurKoestler, c. 1941. Cadre (politics) Clientelism Jobsworth New class Partmaximum...
term holarchy; the latter was coined by ArthurKoestler in his 1967 book The Ghost in the Machine. Koestler wrote that a holarchy is composed of holons...
Failed is a 1949 collection of six essays by Louis Fischer, André Gide, ArthurKoestler, Ignazio Silone, Stephen Spender, and Richard Wright. The common theme...
works is that a regular routine can have a spiritual dimension. Both ArthurKoestler and Gershom Scholem accused Herrigel's book of being influenced by...
arguing for the existence of the paranormal. This idea was explored by ArthurKoestler in The Roots of Coincidence and taken up by the New Age movement. Unlike...
genius who committed suicide in 1926, at the age of forty-five. — ArthurKoestler, The Roots of Coincidence One of Kammerer's passions was collecting...
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