Kallocain cover art

Kallocain

Penguin Classics

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Kallocain

By: Karin Boye, David McDuff - translator
Narrated by: Claes Bang
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

This Penguin Classic is performed by Claes Bang, best known for his role in the BBC's & Netflix's Dracula. This definitive recording includes an introduction by David McDuff.

Leo Kall is a zealous, middle-ranking scientist in the totalitarian World State who has just made a thrilling discovery: a new drug, Kallocain, that will force anyone who takes it to tell the truth. At last, criminality will be dragged out into the open and private thought can finally be outlawed. But can the World State be trusted with Kallocain? For that matter - can Kall himself be trusted?

Written as the terrible events of the Second World War were unfolding, Karin Boye's classic dystopian novel speaks more clearly than ever of the dangers of acquiescence, and the power of resistance, no matter how futile.

©1940 Karin Boye (P)2020 Penguin Audio Classics Dystopian Genre Fiction Political Science Fiction Fiction

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Critic reviews

The woman who reimagined the dystopian novel (Talya Zax)
All stars
Most relevant
Loved the book it was perfect with claes bang reading in English wish there was more I didn’t want the book to finish

Claes bang perfect voice loved him narrating story

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I admit I never heard of this author or novel before but glad I did. Very well written in the form of a memoir and reminds you a lot of George Orwell's 1984 and saddened it hasn't had the same amount of notoriety. Like most Modernist texts the retrospective/exetensial parts can at first be a bit overwhelming but the narration helps overcome this. Could listen to Claes Bang's voice all day long!

The science of cruelty..

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title says it all. snuffs totally self obsessed add doesn't really understand how to deliver longer passages lost count of how often gdwptpdppdp phrases in the wrong place.. PLEASE re record this with one of your more experienced native English language narrators, it's too good a story not to.

narrator ruins it

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