Charlie English is the author of the new book The CIA Book Club: The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War with Forbidden Literature. His other books include The Gallery of Miracles and Madness. He lives in London.
Q: What inspired you to write The CIA Book Club?
A: At root, it’s just a fabulous story that no one had told. I hope I've done it justice.
A deeper answer is that I’ve been researching culture in conflict situations for about 10 years now.
The first book I wrote in this area was The Storied City (aka The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu), which examined how Timbuktu librarians saved their historic manuscripts from Al Qaeda during the city’s occupation in 2012. The second was The Gallery of Miracles and Madness, which looked at how Hitler used “degenerate art” to justify his extreme racist politics.
So a story about using literature as a way to win the Cold War seemed to me to fit well into my zone. I guess it is the third book in a trilogy of sorts.
Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that particularly surprised you?
A: Research was tricky for two reasons. One was that Covid hit just as I began it, which meant I couldn’t travel for some time. Two was that most of the material is still classified.
Luckily I was able to obtain the reports George Minden, the guy who led the CIA program. These recorded his meetings with a string of book publishers and smugglers. I took what I found there to Eastern Europe, where I interviewed people, mostly Poles, about their meetings and activities.
Gradually I was able to build a complete picture, through oral history and written sources. What surprised me was how this operation had remained secret for so long, despite so many people being involved.
Q: Of the various characters you write about in the book, are there some that you found especially compelling?
A: There are several. Jerzy Giedroyc is one, but perhaps the most compelling is Miroslaw Chojecki, the central figure in the story. Chojecki, who died very recently, was a remarkable individual, whose modesty and secrecy meant he didn’t get enough credit, in my view, for what he had achieved during the Cold War.
He took a lot of secrets to the grave, including I am sure further details of his work with the CIA, but during our many meetings over the course of several years I got a good part of his story down.
Q: In a review in The New York Times, writer Joseph Finder said of the book, “[T]he publication of ‘The CIA Book Club’ feels perfectly, painfully timely...English’s book is a reminder of what’s lost when a government no longer believes in the power of its own ideals.” What do you think of that assessment, and what do you hope readers take away from the book in today’s political climate?
A: I agree. Joseph summarised the book’s current relevance very well. There’s a great irony here, in that certain politicians in the US are attempting to censor some of the very same books – including George Orwell’s 1984 – that the CIA once sent to the east in the name of freedom.
This is just a small part of this administration’s broad-spectrum attack on free speech, the independent media, and democracy. The threat Trump represents is there for everyone to see. Unfortunately, a large number of people appear to have forgotten the lessons of the Cold War, and don’t realise what a terrible thing authoritarianism is.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m working on a family memoir, a very different type of story from this one.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I don’t think so. Thanks for giving me this space. If people want to ask me more questions they can contact me direct via charlieenglish.net.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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