Dictator Literature

`Very funny...After reading Dictator Literature you will never look at books with such a benevolent eye again.' * <i>Spectator</i> * `I enjoyed this book a great deal . . . it's actually a rather snappy read.' * Will Self, <i>Guardian</i> * `A fascinating study...partly an enjoyable romp but mostly a sombre sidelong-glance history of 20th-century totalitarianism.' * <i>Sunday Telegraph</i> * `Brisk, and full of antic fun.' * <i>New Statesman</i> * `Hugely compelling...Like coming across a planet-sized car crash, with hundreds of millions snarled up in the wreckage: you can't look away. Kalder has really dug deep into the minds of these infernal texts' creators, and thus delivers some truly enlightening insights.' * <i>Irish Independent </i> * `Kalder is our cheeky and irreverent guide to the (generally aggressively tedious) prose by history's despots.' * <i>Tatler</i> * `Full of...wonders, and startling individual facts...An overwhelmingly powerful reminder of 20th-century misrule, and of just how delusional human beings can be - especially if they're literate.' * <i>Telegraph</i> * `Daniel Kalder...deserves a medal...Dictator Literature is a great book...An insightful book, but also a funny one.' * <i>Times</i> * `This is about the most discomforting book I've read in the past year. Never mind Trump and never mind Twitter: Kalder demonstrates that words themselves, and the escapist spells we weave with them, are our riskiest civic gift.' -- Simon Ings, author of <i>Stalin and the Scientists</i> `A compelling examination of why bad minds create bad writing, and therefore a valuable read for anyone interested in literature - or the world, in fact. Kalder's dry humour makes Dictator Literature a fun tour de force through the mad history of the 20th century and the present.' -- Norman Ohler, author of <i>Blitzed</i>