Dictator-lit We know they're brutal despots, but are they any good as writers? Daniel Kalder investigates
Dictator lit: Castro's clunking Che memoir Daniel Kalder Interested in the insider's view of Che Guevara by his comrade-in-arms Fidel Castro? I wouldn't look for it here if I were you, writes Daniel Kalder
Dictator-lit: Islam Karimov's bland menace Daniel Kalder Although he governs with despotic violence, Uzbekistan's leader reads like a platitudinous Blairite
Dictator-lit: Saddam Hussein tortured metaphors, too Daniel Kalder: He may have lost the interest of the public, but Saddam's prose starts promisingly enough. Until the bear sex
Dictator-lit: Kim Jong-il's political philosophy Delivered in prose of awesome sterility, the North Korean despot's commitment to lies is unwavering. Onwards!
Dictator-lit: Gaddafi's surreal gibberish The Libyan leader's 'short stories' are atrocious, but he can spew invective with the best of them
Dictator-lit: The poetry of Ayatollah Khomeini Daniel Kalder: Better known for his contributions to religion, revolution and world politics, Iran's supreme leader took literary criticism to new lengths. And wrote some surprising poems
Dictator-lit: The Tajiks in the Mirror of History Daniel Kalder: Historically spurious and spiritually confused, Emomalii Rahmon's presidential history of Tajikistan plays fast and loose with notions of national identiity, but it could have been far, far worse ...
Dictator-lit: Comrade Brezhnev goes to war Daniel Kalder: The memoirs of Leonid Brezhnev, the hairy-eyebrowed Soviet premier, have been deservedly forgotten
Dictator-lit: Hoxha on Stalin Daniel Kalder: Two of Europe's most malignant egos converge in the Albanian dictator's fond memoir of the Soviet despot
The power of dictator-lit Daniel Kalder: Turkmenistan's Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov is only the latest despot to commandeer the printed page
