Fabrika snov (The Dream Factory)

Berlin: Petropolis, 1931. First Edition. Very good -. First edition in book form (initially appearing in three issues of the journal "Krasnaia nov" in the same year); 7 1/2 x 5 1/2; pp. [2], 5-243, [5]; beige wraps, printed in red, with an elaborate green border; closed cuts to tips of spine; two chips to fore-edge and lower corner; partially unopened; overall in very good- condition.Ilia Erenburg (1891-1967) was a writer, journalist, and translator, who left Russia after the Revolution and lived and worked in various European cities well into the 1940s. He was a prominent figure among the Russian dissident intellectuals, including Pasternak, Esenin, and Maiakovskii. During the Great Depression in the US, he wrote a series of novels that dealt with Capitalism and its workings, one of which was "The Dream Factory." Although presented as a documentary report, it was in fact a fictionalized, anti-Hollywood film industry novel. Although it carried a strong, anti-Capitalist bias, the book was not accepted by the the authorities, thus it was published in Berlin.