Signed
Kallocain
First English translation, 1966
Kallocain (1966) is the first English language edition of Karin Boye's dystopian novel, originally published in Swedish in 1940, nine years before Orwell's 1984. Set in a rigidly totalitarian World State of the future, the novel follows Leo Kall, a chemist who has developed Kallocain, a truth drug capable of forcing complete psychological transparency in anyone who receives it. The State embraces the drug as the ultimate instrument of control, stripping away the last private refuge of the individual. As Kall administers the drug to others and witnesses what it reveals, his own certainties about loyalty, love, and the State begin to unravel.
Written by one of Sweden's most celebrated poets and directly inspired by Boye's visits to Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, Kallocain remained largely unknown outside Scandinavia for more than two decades after its publication. Richard B. Vowles, who provides the introduction to this 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." This copy is inscribed by Vowles.
First English language edition, translated by Gustaf Lannestock, and part of The Nordic Translation Series by the University of Wisconsin Press.
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.
Written by one of Sweden's most celebrated poets and directly inspired by Boye's visits to Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, Kallocain remained largely unknown outside Scandinavia for more than two decades after its publication. Richard B. Vowles, who provides the introduction to this 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." This copy is inscribed by Vowles.
First English language edition, translated by Gustaf Lannestock, and part of The Nordic Translation Series by the University of Wisconsin Press.
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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