Duncan White – författare

In this brilliant account of the literary war within the Cold War, novelists and poets become embroiled in a dangerous game of betrayal, espionage, and conspiracy at the heart of the vicious conflict fought between the Soviet Union and the WestDuring the Cold War, literature was both sword and noose. Novels, essays, and poems could win the hearts and minds of those caught between the competing creeds of capitalism and communism. They could also lead to blacklisting, exile, imprisonment, or execution for their authors if they offended those in power. The clandestine intelligence services of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union recruited secret agents and established vast propaganda networks devoted to literary warfare. But the battles were personal, too: friends turned on one another, lovers were split by political fissures, artists were undermined by inadvertent complicities. And while literary battles were fought in print, sometimes the pen was exchanged for a gun, the bookstore for the battlefield.In Cold Warriors, Duncan White vividly chronicles how this ferocious intellectual struggle was waged on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Among those involved were George Orwell, Stephen Spender, Mary McCarthy, Graham Greene, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, John le Carré, Anna Akhmatova, Richard Wright, Ernest Hemingway, Boris Pasternak, Gioconda Belli, and Václav Havel. Here, too, are the spies, government officials, military officers, publishers, politicians, and critics who helped turn words into weapons at a time when the stakes could not have been higher.Drawing upon years of archival research and the latest declassified intelligence, Cold Warriors is both a gripping saga of prose and politics, and a welcome reminder that--at a moment when ignorance is all too frequently celebrated and reading is seen as increasingly irrelevant--writers and books can change the world.

At the outbreak of the Second World War Vladimir Nabokov stood on the brink of losing everything all over again. The reputation he had built as the pre-eminent Russian novelist in exile was imperilled. In Nabokov and his Books, Duncan White shows how Nabokov went to America and not only reinvented himself as an American writer but also used the success of Lolita to rescue those Russian books that had been threatened by obscurity. Using previously unpublished and neglected material, White tells the story of Nabokov the professional writer and how he sought to balance his late modernist aesthetics with the demands of a booming American literary marketplace. As Nabokov''s reputation grew so he took greater and greater control of how his books were produced, making the material form of the book--including forewords, blurbs, covers--part of the novel. In his later novels, including Pale Fire, Ada, and Transparent Things, the idea of the novelist losing control of his work became the subject of the novels themselves. These plots were replicated in Nabokov''s own biography, as he discovered his inability to control the forces the market success of Lolita had unleashed. With new insights into Nabokov''s life and work, this book reconceptualises the way we think about one of the most important and influential novelists of the twentieth century.

At the outbreak of the Second World War Vladimir Nabokov stood on the brink of losing everything all over again. The reputation he had built as the pre-eminent Russian novelist in exile was imperilled. In Nabokov and his Books, Duncan White shows how Nabokov went to America and not only reinvented himself as an American writer but also used the success of Lolita to rescue those Russian books that had been threatened by obscurity. Using previously unpublished and neglected material, White tells the story of Nabokov the professional writer and how he sought to balance his late modernist aesthetics with the demands of a booming American literary marketplace. As Nabokov''s reputation grew so he took greater and greater control of how his books were produced, making the material form of the book--including forewords, blurbs, covers--part of the novel. In his later novels, including Pale Fire, Ada, and Transparent Things, the idea of the novelist losing control of his work became the subject of the novels themselves. These plots were replicated in Nabokov''s own biography, as he discovered his inability to control the forces the market success of Lolita had unleashed. With new insights into Nabokov''s life and work, this book reconceptualises the way we think about one of the most important and influential novelists of the twentieth century.

At the outbreak of the Second World War Vladimir Nabokov stood on the brink of losing everything all over again. The reputation he had built as the pre-eminent Russian novelist in exile was imperilled. In Nabokov and his Books, Duncan White shows how Nabokov went to America and not only reinvented himself as an American writer but also used the success of Lolita to rescue those Russian books that had been threatened by obscurity. Using previously unpublished and neglected material, White tells the story of Nabokov the professional writer and how he sought to balance his late modernist aesthetics with the demands of a booming American literary marketplace. As Nabokov's reputation grew so he took greater and greater control of how his books were produced, making the material form of the book--including forewords, blurbs, covers--part of the novel. In his later novels, including Pale Fire, Ada, and Transparent Things, the idea of the novelist losing control of his work became the subject of the novels themselves. These plots were replicated in Nabokov's own biography, as he discovered his inability to control the forces the market success of Lolita had unleashed. With new insights into Nabokov's life and work, this book reconceptualises the way we think about one of the most important and influential novelists of the twentieth century.

'White handles hefty quantities of research effortlessly, combining multiple biographies with a broader overview of the period. His energetic, anecdote-laden prose will have you hooked all the way from Orwell to le Carré' Sunday Times, Books of the Year'Cold Warriors reads like a thriller . . . ambitious, intelligent, searching history' The TimesIn this age of 24-hour news coverage, where rallying cries are made on Twitter and wars are waged in cyberspace as much as on the ground, the idea of a novel as a weapon that can wield any power feels almost preposterous.The Cold War was a time when destruction was merely the press of a button away, but when the real battle between East and West was over the minds and hearts of their people. In this arena the pen really was mightier than the sword. This is a gripping, richly-populated history of spies and journalists, protest and propaganda, idealism and betrayal. And it is the story of how literature changed the course of the Cold War just as much as how Cold War would change the course of literature. Using hitherto classified security files and new archival research White explores the ways in which authors were harnessed by both East and West to impose maximum damage on the opposition; how writers played a pivotal role (sometimes consciously, often not) in the conflict; and how literature became something that was worth fighting and dying for.With a cast that includes George Orwell, Arthur Koestler, Graham Greene, Boris Pasternak, Andrei Sinyavsky, Mary McCarthy and John le Carré, and taking the reader from Spain to America to England and to Russia, this is narrative history at its most enthralling and most pertinent - pertinent because even if on the face of it there is a huge difference between 140 characters and 100,000 words, at the heart of both is the power of stories to change the fate of nations.

'White handles hefty quantities of research effortlessly, combining multiple biographies with a broader overview of the period. His energetic, anecdote-laden prose will have you hooked all the way from Orwell to le Carr ' Sunday Times, Books of the Year'Cold Warriors reads like a thriller . . . ambitious, intelligent, searching history' The TimesIn this age of 24-hour news coverage, where rallying cries are made on Twitter and wars are waged in cyberspace as much as on the ground, the idea of a novel as a weapon that can wield any power feels almost preposterous. The Cold War was a time when destruction was merely the press of a button away, but when the real battle between East and West was over the minds and hearts of their people. In this arena the pen really was mightier than the sword. This is a gripping, richly-populated history of spies and journalists, protest and propaganda, idealism and betrayal. And it is the story of how literature changed the course of the Cold War just as much as how Cold War would change the course of literature. Using hitherto classified security files and new archival research White explores the ways in which authors were harnessed by both East and West to impose maximum damage on the opposition; how writers played a pivotal role (sometimes consciously, often not) in the conflict; and how literature became something that was worth fighting and dying for. With a cast that includes George Orwell, Arthur Koestler, Graham Greene, Boris Pasternak, Andrei Sinyavsky, Mary McCarthy and John le Carr , and taking the reader from Spain to America to England and to Russia, this is narrative history at its most enthralling and most pertinent - pertinent because even if on the face of it there is a huge difference between 140 characters and 100,000 words, at the heart of both is the power of stories to change the fate of nations.

A unique and beautiful book, profusely illustrated, A Certain Slant of Light was shortlisted for the Fitzcarraldo Prize. Duncan White's moving novel reverberates with unspoken grief. A beautifully written meditation on impermanence, in which art and human life are seen as signal flares into the darkness.