The Hungarian translation of Darkness at Noon (1940) was the result of the efforts of a university student and to-be founder of the underground Trabant band, Gábor Lukin. He was an admirer of György Petri, and in 1976, Lukin gave the typescript to the poet to have the translation checked. Petri asked the writer György Dalos to correct the text with a special regard to Soviet terminology and the spelling of Russian names. Lukin then sent the final version to Koestler in London, and the author mediated the typescript to the Münich publishing house Újváry-Griff. They published the novel as Sötétség délben in 1981.

In the meantime, the translation was circulated in Budapest as well, but it took years before a samizdat edition was printed. Gábor Demszky's AB Független and György Krassó's Magyar Október, the two major samizdat presses which regularly published international literature, were not particularly interested in the work. They opted instead for George Orwell's 1984, and they competed with each other to get it translated and published. A newcomer took the initiative in Koestler's case. Samizdat publisher Szabad Idő [Free Time] was founded in 1984 by Péter Égerszegi, József Gehér, Zoltán Kurdi, and Lajos Jakab, and they showed interest in publishing Darkness at Noon as their first book.

It was Jakab who had contacts at a printing press. The printer, however, did not work very well, so Jakab needed to give him instructions again and again as to how to correct the mistakes. It was not an easy task: relatively few people had telephones at the time, and Jakab did not have one at home. He started the calls from his workplace. In retrospect, Jakab suspected that his calls were intercepted, since the political police came to search his office. They knew from the start that he was keeping samizdat in his file cabinet. Until then, Jakab had been convinced that his samizdat collection, which consisted of more than one hundred items, was at a safer place in his office than in his home. He proved to be wrong. He was fined by the police, and the officers wanted to turn him into an agent, but he refused. His boss was also informed about the case, and Jakab had to resign from his position. He was unable to find a job as an economist after that, so he decided to continue his dissident activities openly. He gave private lessons in maths to make a living, while he had a fake position at a firm in order to avoid the charge of "közveszélyes munkakerülő" (truant perilous to the public), a particular legal category under Kádárism.

With regard to Koestler's book, the police confiscated the covers that featured Kazimir Malevich's drawing "Arrest: Man and Power.” Jakab, however, managed to save the inside and pass it on to his friends without the police noticing it. Zoltán Kurdi, with the assistance of Inconnu member Péter Bokros, printed the cover with a very simple non-offset technique. Naturally, Jakab could not take part in the production of the book anymore. It was bound by the publishers themselves under the guidance of Gábor Rózsa at his flat. Sötétség délben was soon on the underground book market.