It's here! Browse the 2024 Penguin Christmas gift guide
Arrow in the Blue

Arrow in the Blue

Summary

The first volume of the remarkable autobiography of Arthur Koestler, author of Darkness at Noon.

In 1931, Arthur Koestler joined the Communist Party, an event he felt to be second only in importance to his birth in shaping his destiny. Before that point, he lived a tumultuous and varied existence. He was a member of the duelling fraternity at the University of Vienna; a collective farm worker in Galilee; a tramp and street vendor in Haifa; the editor of a weekly paper in Cairo; the foreign correspondent of the biggest continental newspaper chain in Paris and the Middle East; a science editor in Berlin; and a member of the North Pole expedition of the Graf Zeppelin.

Written with enormous zest, joie de vivre and frankness, Arrow in the Blue is a fascinating self-portrait of a remarkable young man at the heart of the events that shaped the twentieth century.

The second volume of Arthur Koestler's autobiography is The Invisible Writing.

Reviews

  • A brilliant and deeply moving record of a whole generation as well as of an individual
    Observer

About the author

Arthur Koestler

Arthur Koestler (1905-1983) was an extraordinary polymath, writer and political polemicist. His most famous works include the novels Darkness at Noon and Arrival and Departure, his autobiographical writings, including Spanish Testament and Scum of the Earth, and his visionary non-fiction, including The Ghost in the Machine, The Case of the Midwife Toad and The Sleepwalkers.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more