PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY

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The classic dystopian novel from Sweden, written at the midpoint between Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four

Leo Kall is a zealous, middle-ranking scientist in the totalitarian World State who has just made a thrilling discovery- a new drug, Kallocain, that will force anyone who takes it to tell the truth. At last, criminality will be dragged out into the open and private thought can finally be outlawed. But can the World State be trusted with Kallocain? For that matter - can Kall himself be trusted?

Written as the terrible events of the Second World War were unfolding, Karin Boye's classic dystopian novel speaks more clearly than ever of the dangers of acquiescence, and the power of resistance, no matter how futile.

By:  
Introduction by:  
Translated by:  
Imprint:   Penguin
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 198mm,  Width: 129mm,  Spine: 11mm
Weight:   145g
ISBN:   9780241608302
ISBN 10:   0241608309
Pages:   192
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  ELT Advanced ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Karin Boye (1900-41), born in Sweden, was a poet and anti-Fascist who translated The Waste Land into Swedish. After undergoing psychoanalysis in Berlin, she left her husband and formed a lifelong relationship with another woman, Margot Hanel. Her most famous book, Kallocain (1940), was partly inspired by eye-opening trips to Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Boye committed suicide the year after writing the novel. David McDuff's translations for Penguin Classics include Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov and The Idiot, and Babel's short stories.

Reviews for Kallocain

The woman who reimagined the dystopian novel -- Talya Zax * The New Yorker *


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