Rebecca West

I don't know a damn thing abotu Rebecca West. Black Lamb and Grey falcon was published in 1940. Mine is a hard copy from 1944. the beast of a book is 1,150 pages long. But from this one book alone I knew she was fervently political Black Lamb.org described her thusly:

"A vivacious, politically-committed woman, West began writing in radical periodicals while still a student at George Watson’s Ladies’ College in Edinburgh and took her pen name from one of Ibsen’s emancipated heroines. Her early novels and critical studies, excellent in themselves, nevertheless seem preludes to her masterwork Black Lamb and Grey Falcon..."

So here we have that very book and it is as they say.

"...If I carried my questioning of the dead back for a thousand years I would always hear "No, there was fear, there were our enemies, without, our rulers within, there was prison, there was torture, there was violent death."