Simon Ings

Novelist and science writer Simon Ings looks at four writers who were lured to the centre of political action and established damaging and dangerous relationships with dictators.

Ings investigates Maurice Barrès, who first wielded the politics of identity, Gabriele D’Annunzio, whose poetry became a blueprint for fascism, Maxim Gorky, the dramatist of the working class and Stalin’s cheerleader and the Maoist Ding Ling, whose stories exculpated the regime that kept her imprisoned. Ings says all four had extravagant visions and believed they were vital to its realisation. When writers and rulers find a use for each other the consequences can be shattering for everyone.

Ings is a former culture editor at New Scientist and a contributor to the magazine and to The Telegraph. His novels include Wolves and The Smoke and his non-fiction includes The Eye: A Natural History and Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy 1905–1953.