Леонид Кауфман Эптон Синклер и его самый длинный роман
Посвящается моей семье, которая неизменно поддерживает меня, а также всем её поколениям, которые придут после нас в этот мир и уже не будут читать книг, а только гаджеты. И если им попадет а руки эта книжка и они захотят использовать ее, например, для растопки самовара или для жарки шашлыка, и подвернется им случайно портрет автора с обложки их предка, может быть, они спросят своих родителей: а кто это там догорает в огне ярким пламенем? Но их родители посмотрят сквозь дым мангала и скажут: что-то там внутри написано, да зачем вам?
Upton Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 November 25, 1968) was an American writer who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in several genres. Sinclair's work was well-known and popular in the first half of the twentieth century, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943.
Between 1940 and 1953, Sinclair wrote a series of 11 novels featuring a central character named Lanny Budd. The son of an American arms manufacturer, Budd is portrayed as holding in the confidence of world leaders, and not simply witnessing events but often propelling them. As a sophisticated socialite, who mingles easily with people from all cultures and socioeconomic classes, Budd has been characterized as the antithesis of the stereotyped «Ugly American». Sinclair placed Budd within the important political events in the United States and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. There was an actual company named the Budd Company which manufactured arms during World War II, founded by Edward G. Budd in 1912.
The novels were bestsellers upon publication and were published in translation, appearing in twenty-one countries. The third book in the series, Dragon's Teeth (1942), won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1943. Out of print and nearly forgotten for years, ebook editions of the Lanny Budd series were published in 2016.