Engineers of Human Souls

Four Cautionary Tales of Political and Literary Megalomania in the Twentieth Century

SIMON INGS

Four writers. Four dictators. One world, changed out of all recognition…

ENGINEERS OF HUMAN SOULS is an intimate and shocking shadow history of four writers whose overweening creative ambition shaped the careers of the century’s most notorious dictators.

Maurice Barres, who first discovered how to marry socialism and nationalism. Gabriele D’Annunzio, whose poetry became a blueprint for fascism in Italy. Maxim Gorky, dramatist of the working class and Stalin’s cheerleader. Ding Ling whose stories served the Maoist regime that kept her imprisoned for years.

Each nursed an extravagant vision of the future and believed they were vital to its realization. All four were lured to the centre of political action. There they created the blueprints and practices that sustained notorious regimes.

In a post-literary world sustained by social media, we all now wield a little of the power over crowds once wielded by Barres and Gorky, Ding Ling and D’Annunzio. These stories – of courage and compromise, vanity and malevolence – speak urgently to the uncontrollable power of words.

Simon Ings is the author of eight previous novels and two works of nonfiction, including the Baillie Gifford-longlisted STALIN AND THE SCIENTISTS (Faber/Atlantic Monthly Press, 2016). He is also the editor of the recent anthology WE, ROBOTS: Artificial Intelligence in 100 Stories (Head of Zeus, 2020). His novel THE WEIGHT OF NUMBERS (Atlantic, 2006) won the O2 X Prize. He is the former arts editor of New Scientist magazine and lives in London.

AGENT

Peter Tallack

PUBLISHER

Beacon Press

PUBLICATION

Spring 2024

STATUS

Manuscript

LENGTH

85,000 words

RIGHTS SOLD

• US & Canada (Beacon Press)