ARTS & LETTERS

By Adam Zagorin/Washington

Hankering for a hot page-turner in the new year? Check out Escape to Hell, a tour de force without remorse, penned originally in Arabic by Libyan strongman and litterateur MUAMMAR GADDAFI. The volume's 20-page preface, by PIERRE SALINGER, the former J.F.K. press secretary and international oddball, presents Gaddafi as a multifaceted Arab and Islamic figure too long typecast as a one-dimensional thug in the West. The book delivers an eclectic mix of Gaddafi essays and short stories. You can curl up with The Suicide of the Astronaut, the dictator's winsome tale of a space traveler who explores the moon only to find upon his return to earth that his life is empty. Salinger and Canadian publisher ALAIN STANKE clinched the book deal with Gaddafi not long ago in a tent at the maximum leader's army barracks near Tripoli. Stanke says Gaddafi will get no advance and denies reports that the Libyan government is paying the publisher and Salinger to put out the book. No movie options yet.

--By Adam Zagorin/Washington