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Transporting stories of intrigue, superstition and rivalry from a European master, in English for the first time In this stark, haunting collection, Miklós Bánffy narrates with wry wisdom stories of cunning, betrayal and myth ranging from classical antiquity to the Transylvania of his own day. These are communities of sharp rivalries and religious superstition: young Borbálka, about to marry an unsuitable man, receives strange counsel from a suspicious figure in her village; four men seek to exploit the captive Gavrila Lung for money, while mountain wolves howl in the distance; when Old Damaskin betrays his stepson to hold on to his land, his wife extracts bizarre revenge.
Translated into English for the first time by the award-winning Len Rix, this collection further establishes Bánffy as one of the foremost European writers of the twentieth century.
About the author
Len Rix was born in Zimbabwe and now lives in Cambridge. He is the translator of all Szerb's work published in English and his translations have been widely celebrated, earning him the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize and the PEN Translation Prize.
Summary
Transporting stories of intrigue, superstition and rivalry from a European master, in English for the first time.
Additional text
'The Tolstoy of Transylvania... Bánffy's trilogy is just about as good as any fiction I have ever read.' - Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph
'The elegiac wisdom of his writing makes him one of those people whose life you wish could have ended in something other than calamity... a great storyteller.' - Guardian
'A genuine case of a rediscovered classic. The force of Bánffy's enthusiasm produces an effect rather like that of the best Trollope novels, but coming from a past world that now seems excitingly exotic.' - Times Literary Supplement
'Bánffy's masterpiece resembles Proust, [yet] he writes with all the psychological acumen of Dostoevsky.' - The London Magazine
'Hungary's Tolstoy.' - Standpoint
