ARGONAUT BOOKS

An intimate and shocking shadow history of creative vanity in a time that turned writers - once the faithful servants of authority - into figures of political consequence. Gabriele D'Annunzio, whose poetry became a blueprint for fascism in Italy. Maxim Gorky, dramatist of the working class and Stalin's cheerleader. Joseph Goebbels, a hopeless novelist but, under Hitler, an inspired propagandist. Ding Ling whose every story served the Maoist regime that kept her imprisoned for years. Not one of them was suited to vast undertakings. All four nursed extravagant visions of the future, and believed...Read More