ABSTRACT
Although less well known than his earlier fiction, Arthur Koestler's The Age of Longing deserves some attention as an often frenetic assertion that the god had indeed failed. The Age of Longing was squeezed out of a life of political activism, essay writing, and frenetic hedonism well described in the diary kept by his future wife, Mamaine Paget. While writing The Age of Longing, Koestler became a founding activist of Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF). The Age of Longing is anticipated in two polemics, 'The Little Flirts of St. Germain des Prés', first published in Le Figaro Littéraire, and 'Les Temps héroïques', describing a Paris ravaged and poverty stricken after a 'second liberation'. Koestler had long since adopted the psychoanalytical approach to political radicalism which became in 1950s a key component of Western Cold War culture. He was a prominent subscriber to the dominant interpretive trend in mid-century Western political science, alchemic mutation of neurosis and self-hatred into political radicalism.
