Classics · TenseAn Old Bolshevik is arrested in the night by the secret police during the Great Purge of 1938
Darkness at Noon
A veteran of the revolution is arrested and interrogated in prison in 1938
Nikolai Salmanovich Rubashov is a man in his fifties and an Old Bolshevik who helped build the regime. In 1938, during the Great Purge, the secret police arrest him in the middle of the night. Most of the story takes place in an unnamed prison and in his memories. The novel draws on the 1938 Moscow show trials, and Rubashov is based on several real victims of them. It was first published in 1940 in an English translation by Daphne Hardy, and the original German text was lost until 2015.
More about this book
Who
Nikolai Rubashov, an Old Bolshevik.
World
An unnamed Soviet Union in 1938, mostly a prison and Rubashov's memories.
What makes it different
It draws on the Moscow show trials, and the German original was lost until 2015.
Feel
Grim and tense.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Further reading
- Darkness at NoonWikipedia