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 West
During 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.
We publiceren alleen reviews die voldoen aan de voorwaarden voor reviews. Bekijk onze voorwaarden voor reviews.