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Kallocain
First English translation, 1966
Kallocain (1940) is Karin Boye's dystopian novel of a future World State in which virtually every aspect of life is subordinated to the needs of the State. Leo Kall, a loyal chemist, develops Kallocain, a truth drug capable of forcing people to reveal thoughts and feelings they would otherwise keep private. The State quickly recognizes its potential as the ultimate instrument of control, stripping away what had remained the individual's last private refuge.
As Kall administers the drug, however, the secrets it reveals begin to undermine his faith in the society he serves. His growing jealousy of his superior, Edo Rissen, and his troubled relationship with his wife Linda become entangled with a larger realization that beneath the World State's enforced conformity, people continue to experience private loyalties, desires, fears, and hopes that the State has been unable to extinguish.
Published in Sweden in 1940, Kallocain was shaped by Boye's experiences in both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and stands as one of the major European dystopian novels of the period. Yet it remained largely unknown outside Scandinavia for more than two decades. Richard B. Vowles, who provides the introduction to this first English-language edition, wrote that the novel "deserves to take a secure place in the literature of dystopia among such novels as Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984."
First English language edition, translated by Gustaf Lannestock, and part of The Nordic Translation Series by the University of Wisconsin Press. Inscribed by Vowles.
Hardcover. First American Edition, First Printing. Octavo, black cloth with gilt lettering on spine. Madison & Milwaukee: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1966. #11447.
Near fine in a price-clipped dust jacket.
As Kall administers the drug, however, the secrets it reveals begin to undermine his faith in the society he serves. His growing jealousy of his superior, Edo Rissen, and his troubled relationship with his wife Linda become entangled with a larger realization that beneath the World State's enforced conformity, people continue to experience private loyalties, desires, fears, and hopes that the State has been unable to extinguish.
Published in Sweden in 1940, Kallocain was shaped by Boye's experiences in both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and stands as one of the major European dystopian novels of the period. Yet it remained largely unknown outside Scandinavia for more than two decades. Richard B. Vowles, who provides the introduction to this first English-language edition, wrote that the novel "deserves to take a secure place in the literature of dystopia among such novels as Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984."
First English language edition, translated by Gustaf Lannestock, and part of The Nordic Translation Series by the University of Wisconsin Press. Inscribed by Vowles.
Hardcover. First American Edition, First Printing. Octavo, black cloth with gilt lettering on spine. Madison & Milwaukee: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1966. #11447.
Near fine in a price-clipped dust jacket.
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