Engineers of the Soul is the riveting story of two journeys — one literal, one imaginary — through contemporary Russia and through Soviet-era literature. Travelling through present and past, Frank Westerman draws the reader into the wild euphoria of the Russian Revolution, as art and reality are bent to radically new purposes. Writers of renown, described by Stalin as 'engineers of the soul', were encouraged to sing the praises of canal and dam construction under titles such as Energy, The Hydraulic Power Station and Onward, Time! But their enthusiasm — spontaneous and idealistic at first — soon becomes an obligatory song of praise. And as these colossal waterworks lead to slavery and destruction, Soviet writers labour on in the service of a deluded totalitarian society. Combining investigative journalism with literary history, Westerman examines both the landscape of 'Oriental despotism' and the books — and lives — of writers caught in the wheels of the system. 'It is easy to die a hero's death,' wrote Konstantin Paustovsky, 'but it is difficult to live a hero's life'. Engineers of the Soul sweeps the reader along to the dramatic denouement: the final confrontation between writers and engineers that signalled the end of the Soviet empire.

Engineers of the Soul is the riveting story of how authors were forced to write in service of the Soviet Union's Communist ideology. Stalin first used the expression 'engineers of the soul' to refer to Soviet writers in 1932. It would become a well-known phrase and a feared concept. Together with the actual engineers, these engineers of the soul were supposed to contribute to the definitive establishment of the Communist paradise: by changing the appearance of the country with ambitious waterworks — Moscow Seaport — and by playing upon the souls of its inhabitants in books in such a way that the New Man would rise up. Combining investigative journalism with literary history, Westerman, himself once a student of hydraulic engineering, undertook two spectacular journeys: the first was to the Gulf of Kara Bogaz, now a muddy bay in the Caspian Sea but once described as a marvel of hydraulic engineering, and the second through the books — and the lives — of other Soviet writers including Maxim Gorki, Andrei Platonov and Isaak Babel.