The latest addition to my website is Miklós Szentkuthy‘s Europa Minor, the fourth book in Szentkuthy’s Saint Orpheus’s Breviary series. This is the last of the series translated into French, though it is expected that this and further ones will appear in English from Contra Mundum Press. In this novel, Szentkuthy turns his attention to … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Miklós Szentkuthy‘s Eszkoriál [Escorial]. This book follows the life of Francis Borgia, descendant of those Borgias, later Director-General of the Society of Jesus and canonised nearly a hundred years after his death. He had a colourful life and Szentkuthy inevitably makes it more colourful, while being critical of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Miklós Szentkuthy‘s Fekete Reneszánsz (Black Renaissance). This is the second in his St Orpheus Breviary series. It has not yet been translated into English (I read it in French) but will be appearing from Contra Mundum Press in the not too distant future. Nominally about Claudio Monteverdi, his … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Miklós Szentkuthy‘s Széljegyzetek Casanovához (Marginalia on Casanova). This is the first in series of ten novels (incomplete at the time of the author’s death) written over a period of fifty-four years, albeit with a thirty year gap because of the political situation. It can best be described as … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Magda Szabó‘s Katalin utca (Katalin Street). This is a new translation (September 2017) replacing the one from 2005. It tells the story of three families who had lived in nice houses on Katalin Street, before World War II but, at the start of the book, are living in … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Antal Szerb‘s VII. Olivér (Oliver VII). This is a light-hearted novel, set in the fictitious Southern European country of Alturia. The country is broke and is considering an offer from Coltor, a rich businessman from neighbouring Norlandia. He will take over the two main Alturian industries, sardine fishing … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Antal Szerb‘s A királyné nyaklánca (The Queen’s Necklace). According to Szerb’s introduction to the book, this is not a novel but then, in his posthumous papers, he claims that it might be sort of a novel. In my view it is perhaps what we might call a popular … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Antal Szerb‘s Utas és holdvilág (Journey by Moonlight). This is a wonderfully written book about a man, Mihály, who struggles to cope with life and is obsessed with death. As a child, he had been part of a small group – a brother and sister, Éva and Tamás, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Antal Szerb‘s A Pendragon-legenda (The Pendragon Legend). Szerb’s first novel is a wonderful romp, with a complicated plot involving a thirty-two year old Hungarian intellectual, living in England and getting caught up in a plot involving eccentric (if not mad) English, Welsh, Irish and German characters, with ghosts, … Read more
I spent last week in Budapest but was somewhat disappointed with the literary offerings. I asked around and found only only literary house/museum – the Petőfi Literary Museum, devoted to the poet Sándor Petőfi. Sándor Petőfi lived in the early nineteenth century, became a famous poet (actually making his living from poetry) and has since … Read more