Koestler on Creativity

In addition to his own vivid autobiographies, there are three major biographies of the Hungarian-born writer Arthur Koestler (1905-1983): Iain Hamilton, Koestler: A Biography (1982). David Cesarani, Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind (1998). And now, just recently published, Michael Scammell, Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic (2009). I have the last one on order so I haven't yet read it, but I have read a few of the early reviews. The book sounds  fine, but Koestler himself is in trouble—again. Nearly twenty years ago, when life seemed so much simpler, I wrote about what I had learned from his writings about the creative process. More…