Arthur Koestler

Introduction

Arthur Koestler

If you’ve ever looked anything up in the Encyclopedia Britannica, you’re probably familiar with Arthur Koestler’s work. In addition to his many novels, Koestler also wrote articles for the famous encyclopedia. He was born in Hungary but became a naturalized British citizen. At the age of 26, Koestler joined the Communist party of Germany, but by the late 1940s he was an outspoken anti-Communist. Though he was held by French authorities in an interment camp shortly after World War II began, Koestler later joined the French Foreign Legion and then the British Army, all while keeping his pen very busy. Many of Koestler’s books were popular during his lifetime, but the most famous one today is Darkness at Noon, which has often been compared to George Orwell’s 1984 because they both deal with Stalinism.

Essential Facts

1. Koestler was married three times and had an affair with French author Simone de Beauvoir. Unfortunately, there are many accounts that he beat and raped several women.
2. Later in life, Koestler became fascinated with the paranormal and wrote a great deal about it. This may have been fueled by a “mystical experience” he had as a teenager.
3. In 1960, Koestler was involved in Timothy Leary’s experiments with the hallucinogenic drug psilocybin, which he later wrote about in “Return Trip to Nirvana.”
4. In his youth, the musician Sting was a huge Koestler fan. The Police’s early album Synchronicity was inspired by Koestler’s book The Roots of Coincidence.
5. Koestler and his last wife committed joint suicide by drug overdose. He was very ill, but she was healthy.