Ladies and Gentlemen,

First let me apologize to Spear’s magazine, to my fellow writers, and to the audience for my absence from this notable occasion. I would have loved to be there, but I find myself on the far side of the Atlantic Ocean, and the cost of flying over for even such a sumptuous lunch as today’s is beyond my modest means. That said, I’m absolutely thrilled to have been awarded this prize from Spear’s for the 2010 “Biography of the Year,” and would like to thank the judges for their vote of confidence in my book.

My subject, Arthur Koestler, was not an easy man to write about, not just because of the difficulty (to put it mildly) of his character, but also because he does not easily fit into any national literary or political tradition. Moreover his protean interests and wildly diverse literary output are guaranteed to stretch the reader’s knowledge and patience to the limit, and all these things, taken together, have contributed to his unfortunate neglect since his death. It has therefore been a pleasure to bring Koestler back to life, and to remind today’s readers both of his notable contributions to our present wellbeing and of his virtues as a political writer, second only to those of his close friend, George Orwell.

I should like to add that I value the very existence of this award as an acknowledgement by Spear’s of the importance of the art of biography, which is neither as widely understood, nor as glamorous, as the other literary arts. We biographers are accustomed to reading lengthy reviews that are all about the exploits of our subjects, which is fine for the most part, because it confirms the aptness of our choices, but we also know that without art, even the most fascinating person can be rendered dull. The good biographer, as Virginia Woolf so memorably put it, is “the novelist on oath,” employing the multiple devices of fiction while observing the factual scrupulosity of the historian and preserving the verifiability of the scholar.

In conclusion, let me salute my fellow biographers: Selina Hastings, Mark Hudson, Robert Service and Ion Trewin, and say I’m proud to be in your company, and sorry I can’t be physically among you today.

      This certainly made for a degree of suspense, and was very different from the last time I was in Los Angeles for this event, in 1985, when I won the biography award for Solzhenitsyn, a Biography. At that time the winners were already known and only they were invited. Curiously enough, Evan S. Connell also won that year for fiction, and was still young enough to attend the ceremony, but lightning didn't strike twice in my case. The biography prize was awarded to the distinguished historian, Linda Gordon, for her excellent and sweeping biography of Dorothea Lange, the documentary photographer best known for her work in the 1930s.

     The following day I took part in the Los Angeles Times Book Festival, held on the campus of UCLA. It was an impressive event, with tents and marquees spread out in all directions, and numerous talks, symposia, and roundtables taking place in lecture halls belonging to the university. My particular event was a discussion with two other biographers, Carol Sklenicka, author of Raymond Carver, A Writer's Life, and Laura Twombley, author most recently of Mark Twain's Other Woman, on the subject of "Biography, Literary Masters." The hall was packed, and after our moderator, Scott Martelle, had done an expert job of asking the first questions, I was amazed by how many members of the audience lined up to ask their own questions, and how responsive our listeners were. I'm told that the two-day festival attracts up to 100,000 visitors, and I'm not surprised, since thousands thronged the campus in every direction the Saturday I was there, and it was gratifying to see what an appetite Angelenos still have for books as well as movies.

     While I'm writing this let me note that Koestler continues to enjoy excellent reviews, the latest including a long, interesting article by Nicholas Fraser in the April issue of Harper's magazine, "Use Your Disillusion: Arthur Koestler in the Age of Extremes," and a superb analysis by Neal Ascherson in the April 22 number of The London Review of Books, "Raging towards Utopia." Unfortunately I'm unable to post the texts on my website without permission from the editors, and I'm hoping to get that soon. The links can be found online, but you have to be a subscriber to download them.

In uploading Peter's caricature of Arthur Koestler, I accompanied it with links to two of Peter's websites, but not the site devoted to the subject of Parkinson's disease. The correct address for that site is: http://offandonakpdrag.blogspot.com/

In the case of Ruchika, I inadvertently confused her last name with that of another student in one of my classes, but the correct name is as above: RUCHIKA TOMAR.

I have two immediate tasks ahead of me when I can find the time. One is to put up the Enotes I have been promising ever since this site went live. I have now collected most of the material for them – or, to be precise, it has been collected by my temporary research assistant, Ruchika Thakar, to whom I am extremely grateful. The other is to take advantage of the blog to "review the reviews" of my book, thus turning the tables and taking the opportunity to answer back without those tiresome letters to the editor.

Meanwhile I'd like to draw your attention to a recent caricature of Koestler inspired by my book. It was done by Peter Dunlap-Shohl for one of his own websites, where he writes about having Parkinson's Disease and sometimes caricatures the famous and not-so-famous who have experienced the same disease. The link to his main site is http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/browse.cfm/DunlaP, and he has another devoted exclusively to Parkinson's: http://http://frozengrin.blogspot.com/. 

More soon.

Hungarian Cultural Center

January 28, 2009, 7PM

“With this biography, Scammell forcefully reminds readers why
Arthur Koestler still deserves attention. . . . Scammell has set the
stage for the rediscovery of a great writer.” —Booklist

From award-winning author Michael Scammell comes the first authorized
biography of Arthur Koestler, one of the most influential and
controversial intellectuals of the twentieth century.
Interview with
John Freeman (editor of Granta magazine) and reading by the author.

It’s pretty generous, I think, especially in terms of the work involved. But you could also say there’s an element of showing off, added to a reluctance to let all that information slip into oblivion. Starting a website is in any case an exercise in narcissism, whatever excuses people may make, and the site itself becomes an exciting playground for one, as well as a form of advertising.

Those enotes don’t exist just yet, by the way. I will be uploading them in the course of the next few weeks. Stay tuned.

January 3 or 10 (at 8 & 11 pm):
Interview (1 hour) with Brian Lamb, BookTV (C-SPAN)

January 5 (8.35 am):
Interview with Lionel for The Lionel Show, Air America (radio)

January 6 (7PM):
Reading and Q & A at Riverrun Books, Portsmouth, New Hampshire

January 11 (9.20 am):
Interview with Dr Alvin August Jones, Paradise Radio Network, North Carolina