ABSTRACT
The work of Arthur Koestler born in Budapest a hundred years ago has not remotely fared as well as that of Sartre whose centenary it also is. There were no lengthy television programs commemorating Koestler’s oeuvre; the central square in St. Germain des Pres is now called after Sartre and de Beauvoir but no street or place in London or Paris or Budapest or anywhere else bears Koestler’s name. No chief of state had come to pay his last respects after his death and the number of people attending the funeral was considerably less than 50.000. (Correction 2010: I have been told that there now is a statue of Koestler in Budapest’s sixth district which was unveiled by the Mayor in 2009).
