Should there be any doubts as to the relevance of Arthur Koestler’s fiction for the 21st century, the essays in this eminently accessible volume dispel them with a vengeance. Covering all the novels to have appeared in English, with an editor who commands an unrivalled knowledge of the secondary literature in different languages, and with contributors from an impressive variety of backgrounds, it displays a degree of coherence rare in a compilation. Indispensable reading for all with an interest in an indispensable writer.

Howard Gaskill, University of Edinburgh

This collection of essays promises to spark a revival of interest in a writer known chiefly for Darkness at Noon, but whose other narratives likewise merit contemporary readership. Never more so than in an era enamored of political idealism and averse to the lessons of the past. Rubashov and Beyond bridges twentieth- and twenty-first century concern in its analyses of Koestler’s eventual aversion to Marxism, and then to Nazism. Rounding out the volume are commentaries on Koestler’s response to twentieth-century Zionism, with each of the volume’s contributions providing valuable bibliographical information and accounting, with admirable detail, for historical context.

James Duban, University of North Texas