The Centurys Midnight

"The Century's Midnight is an examination of the literary and political relationships between a number of ideologically sophisticated American and European writers during the Second World War. Many on the European side were endangered by Stalin, Hitler or Mussolini, and were refugees. Since all the writers, irrespective of country or creed, were in contact with each other in different ways, the book offers an account of an intelligent community of people of good will able to transcend national, ideological and cultural barriers. European writers examined include Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Walter Benjamin, Andre Gide, George Orwell, Boris Pilniak, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ignacio Silone and Victor Serge. American writers highlighted include John Dos Passos, Richard Wright, Lewis Mumford, Henry Miller, Anais Nin and Muriel Rukeyser. The book's central theme relates politics and writing to time and narrative. The author argues that knowledge of the writers of this time is of inestimable value in attempting to understand our contemporary world.