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Melancholy
Alberto Manguel praises the Hungarian writer László Földényi as “one of the most brilliant essayists of our time.” Földényi’s extraordinary Melancholy, with its profusion of literary, ecclesiastical, artistic, and historical insights, gives proof to such praise. His book, part history of the term melancholy and part analysis of the melancholic disposition, explores many centuries to explore melancholy’s ambiguities. Along the way Földényi discovers the unrecognized role melancholy may play as a source of energy and creativity in a well-examined life. Földényi begins with a tour of the history of the word melancholy, from ancient Greece to the medieval era, the Renaissance, ...
Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming
'Baron Wenkcheim's Homecoming is a fitting capstone to Krasznahorkai's tetralogy, one of the supreme achievements of contemporary literature. Now seems as good a time as any to name him among our greatest living novelists.' Paris Review Hailed internationally as perhaps the most important novel of the young twenty-first century, Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming is the culmination of László Krasznahorkai's remarkable and singular career. Nearing the end of his life, Baron Bela Wenckheim decides to return to the provincial Hungarian town of his birth. Having escaped from his many casino debts in Buenos Aires, where he was living in exile, he wishes to be reunited with his high-school sweetheart ...
Mr. K Released
Mirroring Romania's drastic transition from totalitarianism to Western-style freedom in the late 1980s, Mr. K Released captures the disturbingly surreal feeling that many newly liberated prisoners face when they leave captivity. Employing his trademark playful absurdity, Mat i Visniec introduces us to Mr. K, a Kafkaesque figure who has been imprisoned for years for an undisclosed crime in a penitentiary with mysterious tunnels. One day, Mr. K finds himself unexpectedly released. Unable to comprehend his sudden liberation, he becomes traumatized by the realities of freedom--more so than the familiar trauma of captivity or imprisonment. In the hope of obtaining some clarification, Mr. K keeps waiting for an appointment with the prison governor, however, their meeting is constantly being delayed. During this endless process of waiting, Mr. K gets caught up in a clinical exploration of his physical surroundings. He does not have the courage or indeed inclination to leave, but can move unrestricted within the prison compound, charting endless series of absurd circles in which readers might paradoxically recognize themselves.
The Bone Fire
Finalist for Le prix du Meilleur livre tranger (France) * A Finalist for the Premio von Rezzori (Italy) * Longlisted for the Prix Femina (France) From an award-winning and internationally acclaimed European writer, and for fans of The Tiger's Wife A chilling and suspenseful novel set in the wake of a violent revolution about a young girl rescued from an orphanage by an otherworldly grandmother she's never met
The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction
A user-friendly reference for English-language readers who are eager to explore contemporary fiction from around the world. Profiling hundreds of titles and authors from 1945 to today, with an emphasis on fiction published in the past two decades, this guide introduces the styles, trends, and genres of the world's literatures, from Scandinavian crime thrillers and cutting-edge Chinese works to Latin American narco-fiction and award-winning French novels. The book's critical selection of titles defines the arc of a country's literary development. Entries illuminate the fiction of individual nations, cultures, and peoples, while concise biographies sketch the careers of noteworthy authors. Com...
The World Goes On
Now in paperback, a transcendent and wide-ranging collection of stories by László Krasznahorkai: "a visionary writer of extraordinary intensity and vocal range who captures the texture of present-day existence in scenes that are terrifying, strange, appallingly comic, and often shatteringly beautiful."--Marina Warner, announcing the Booker International Prize
Past for the Eyes
How do museums and cinema shape the image of the Communist past in today’s Central and Eastern Europe? This volume is the first systematic analysis of how visual techniques are used to understand and put into context the former regimes. After history “ended” in the Eastern Bloc in 1989, museums and other memorials mushroomed all over the region. These efforts tried both to explain the meaning of this lost history, as well as to shape public opinion on their society’s shared post-war heritage. Museums and films made political use of recollections of the recent past, and employed selected museum, memorial, and media tools and tactics to make its political intent historically credible. Thirteen essays from scholars around the region take a fresh look at the subject as they address the strategies of fashioning popular perceptions of the recent past.
How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients and Other Plays
Dramatist, poet, novelist and journalist Matei Visniec, born in Romania and living in France since seeking political asylum in 1987, has been one of the most trenchant voices of Europe, condemning the atrocities of totalitarianism as well as excesses of consumer culture. This first anthology of his dramatic work made available in English collects seven of his plays. "Decomposed Theater or The Human Trashcan "is a modular text that explores forms of brainwashing and alienation both in totalitarian and consumerist societies. "The Body of a Woman as a Battlefield in the Bosnian War "deals with the atrocities of war that addresses witnessing trauma, the complicated relationship between East and ...
The Silent Transformations
"To grow up is to grow old. With time, great love can turn into indifference. And even the most earnest revolution can imperceptibly become its own system of privilege and corruption—just as global warming has slowly modified the climate by degrees. Jullien argues that our failure to notice the effects of cumulative changes over time is due to Western thought’s foundations in classical Greek philosophies of being, which encourage thinking in terms of determined forms and neglect the indeterminable nature of the transition taking place. In contrast, Chinese thought, having a greater sense of the fluidity of life, offers a more flexible way of understanding everyday transformations and provides insightful perspectives from which to consider our relation to history and nature. In particular, a Chinese approach, argues Jullien, allows us to discover that there may be occasions when it is more efficacious to yield to situations than to confront them head-on".
Postcard from London
The first comprehensive volume in English from one of Hungary's most popular twentieth-century writers. Iván Mándy (1918-1995) has been called "the prose poet of Budapest," and this volume of short stories presents the first comprehensive collection of his work in English. His early oeuvre created an urban mythology full of picaresque characters inhabiting the seedier neighborhoods of the city: its flea-market stalls, second-run cinemas, and old-fashioned coffeehouses. The stories from the later decades of Mándy's life, often bordering on the absurd, introduce many autobiographical elements spun around the author's alter-ego, János Zsámboky, whose hapless adventures on a rare trip abroad constitute this group of stories, including "Postcard from London." Mándy's unique style at times borrows techniques from films and radio plays, his quirky cuts creating a flicker of images seen in the mind's eye. Memory and perception, time and place spin in narrative legerdemain that invites and rewards the reader's active participation.
