Author: Manuel Florentín.
Writing freely, creating artistic works without following the established canons or reporting objectively were high-risk activities in communist countries.
Writers and Artists under Communism, by Manuel Florentín, is a unique book in the world, a history of totalitarian socialism through the experiences and works of writers, intellectuals, journalists, musicians, painters, filmmakers and artists of all kinds, who suffered the repression of the communist regimes. Either because their works did not exalt the successes of communism or because they did not conform to the party’s literary and artistic canon; or because they were critical of the system, calling for freedom, democracy and respect for human rights; or simply because they fell out of favour.
This book covers all the countries in which there were, or are, communist or communist-like regimes. Through the experiences and works of these writers and artists, people with names and surnames, it also aims to remember the millions of anonymous, forgotten people who suffered the same repression. No less important, this book shows how many of their counterparts in the West denied or justified the human rights violations in communist countries in order not to undermine the “revolutionary cause”; and criticised and made a vacuum for those who denounced it, such as the Nobel Literature Laureates Camus, Milosz or Vargas Llosa, Orwell, Koestler, Cabrera Infante and Victor Serge, among so many others. As Khrushchev said after the events of 1956: “If a dozen Hungarian writers had been killed in time, the revolution would not have taken place”.
Pages: 896
Publisher: ARZALIA EDICIONES
Binding: Soft cover
ISBN: 9788419018335
RPP: 33,15 euros
