Description
Crazy, funny and gorgeously dark, Kornel Esti sets into rollicking action a series of adventures about a man and his wicked doppleganger, who breathes every forbidden idea of his childhood into his ear, and then reappears decades later.
Part Gogol, part Chekhov, and all brilliance, Kosztolanyi in his final book serves up his most magical, radical, and intoxicating work. Here is a novel which inquires: What if your id (loyally keeping your name) decides to strike out on its own, cuts a disreputable swath through the world, and then sends home to you all its unpaid bills and ruined maidens? And then: What if you and your alter ego decide to write a book together?
About the Author
Novelist, poet, and journalist, Deszoe Kosztolanyi (1885-1936) is widely regarded as one of the great Hungarian writers. Bernard Adams won a PEN Translation Fund Award for his translation of The Adventures of Kornel Esti.
Reviews
"Each of these stories displays a mastery of texture, nuance, and pacing that is absolutely first rate." -- Christopher Byrd - The Daily Beast
"Kosztolanyi was a ringleader in the 20th-century flowering of Hungarian literature, a poet who reformed the language, and a fiction writer of world class." -- The Guardian
"One of the most important and glittering writers of a Hungarian golden age, Kosztolanyi is multicolored and ineffable, like a rainbow. At the end of his life, the virtuoso Kornel Esti appears." -- Peter Esterhazy
"If anyone ever truly wanted to write the history of the Hungarian people, the author would certainly take that Dantean first sentence of Kosztolanyi's Kornel Esti as the work's epigraph: in a word, the most wondrous first sentence ever written in the Hungarian language." -- Laszlo Krasznahorkai
"A tender comedy tinged with the absurdity of life, the thrill of sociability, and the imminence of death, which I guess is exactly the kind of book I like." -- Chad Harbach
Awards
Commended for Best Translated Book Award (Fiction) 2012.
Book Information
ISBN 9780811218436
Author Deszoe Kosztolanyi
Format Paperback
Page Count 240
Imprint New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publisher New Directions Publishing Corporation
Weight(grams) 270g
Dimensions(mm) 206mm * 132mm * 18mm
Part Gogol, part Chekhov, and all brilliance, Kosztolanyi in his final book serves up his most magical, radical, and intoxicating work. Here is a novel which inquires: What if your id (loyally keeping your name) decides to strike out on its own, cuts a disreputable swath through the world, and then sends home to you all its unpaid bills and ruined maidens? And then: What if you and your alter ego decide to write a book together?
About the Author
Novelist, poet, and journalist, Deszoe Kosztolanyi (1885-1936) is widely regarded as one of the great Hungarian writers. Bernard Adams won a PEN Translation Fund Award for his translation of The Adventures of Kornel Esti.
Reviews
"Each of these stories displays a mastery of texture, nuance, and pacing that is absolutely first rate." -- Christopher Byrd - The Daily Beast
"Kosztolanyi was a ringleader in the 20th-century flowering of Hungarian literature, a poet who reformed the language, and a fiction writer of world class." -- The Guardian
"One of the most important and glittering writers of a Hungarian golden age, Kosztolanyi is multicolored and ineffable, like a rainbow. At the end of his life, the virtuoso Kornel Esti appears." -- Peter Esterhazy
"If anyone ever truly wanted to write the history of the Hungarian people, the author would certainly take that Dantean first sentence of Kosztolanyi's Kornel Esti as the work's epigraph: in a word, the most wondrous first sentence ever written in the Hungarian language." -- Laszlo Krasznahorkai
"A tender comedy tinged with the absurdity of life, the thrill of sociability, and the imminence of death, which I guess is exactly the kind of book I like." -- Chad Harbach
Awards
Commended for Best Translated Book Award (Fiction) 2012.
Book Information
ISBN 9780811218436
Author Deszoe Kosztolanyi
Format Paperback
Page Count 240
Imprint New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publisher New Directions Publishing Corporation
Weight(grams) 270g
Dimensions(mm) 206mm * 132mm * 18mm
