SKYLARK

Kosztolányi, Dezső

Literature & Fiction

RANDOM HOUSE UK

Anna Édes is a dark and deeply moving naturalistic novel, a classic work of twentieth-century Hungarian literature. A skillful portrayal of the cruelty and emptiness of bourgeois life, Anna Édes was first published in 1926 and enthusiastically received by the intellectual coffee-house society through which it circulated. The novel was later acknowledged by authors such as Thomas Mann as a model of language and form, and in turn established Dezso Kosztolanyi as one of the most significant writers of Eastern European fiction. Anna is the hard-working and long-suffering heroine, the unhappy maid destroyed by her pitiless employers. Her tragic relationship with them is played out against the political turbulence in Budapest following the First World War. Yet her endurance and revenge are depicted with keen psychological as well as historical insight, becoming, in the words of the translator, "not merely an argument about social conditions but raised to genuine tragedy."

Anna Edes: Novel (Revived Modern Classic)

Contemporary

New Directions

It is 1900, give or take a few years. The Vajkays—call them Mother and Father—live in Sárszeg, a dead-end burg in the provincial heart of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Father retired some years ago to devote his days to genealogical research and quaint questions of heraldry. Mother keeps house. Both are utterly enthralled with their daughter, Skylark. Unintelligent, unimaginative, unattractive, and unmarried, Skylark cooks and sews for her parents and anchors the unremitting tedium of their lives. Now Skylark is going away, for one week only, it’s true, but a week that yawns endlessly for her parents. What will they do? Before they know it, they are eating at restaurants, reconnecting with old friends, attending the theater. And this is just a prelude to Father’s night out at the Panther Club, about which the less said the better. Drunk, in the light of dawn Father surprises himself and Mother with his true, buried, unspeakable feelings about Skylark. Then, Skylark is back. Is there a world beyond the daily grind and life's creeping disappointments? Kosztolányi’s crystalline prose, perfect comic timing, and profound human sympathy conjure up a tantalizing beauty that lies on the far side of the irredeemably ordinary. To that extent, Skylark is nothing less than a magical book.

Skylark (New York Review Books Classics)

United States

NYRB Classics

Series Copy: "Half a continent's worth of forgotten genius."--The Guardian  The new Central European Classics series was born some ten years ago in the dim cafes of Budapest and Prague when General Editor Timothy Garton Ash began jotting down titles recommended to him by local writers. Its aim is to take these works of nineteenth- and twentieth-century classic fiction "out of the ghetto," onto the shelves of Western booksellers, and into the consciousness of Western readers. The result of extensive discussion among writers, scholars, and critics, the rich tradition of Central European fiction has been culled to offer previously unavailable works written in Czech, Hungarian, and Polish that lend themselves perfectly to powerful and accurate translation. Specially commissioned introductions by leading Central European writers explain why these titles have become classics in their own country, while at the same time, the works stand on their own as great literature in English. With future titles such as a new edition of Boleslaw Prus's Polish masterpiece, The Doll, the Central European Classics series will contribute to a deeper understanding of the culture and history of countries which, since the opening of iron curtain, have been coming closer to us in many other ways.  An acknowledged masterpiece of twentieth-century Hungarian fiction, Dezso Kosztolanyi's Skylark is a portrait of provincial life in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy at the turn of the century. Set in autumn of 1899, it focuses on one extraordinary week in the otherwise uneventful lives of an elderly Hungarian couple. Their ugly spinster daughter, nicknamed Skylark, las left them for and unprecedented holiday with relatives in the country. At first the couple, whose entire existence revolves around their daughter, are devastated by her absence. Slowly, however, they rediscover the delights and diversions of small-town society life, finally reaching the shocking conclusion that their daughter is a burden to them. In this beautifully written tale--introduced by one of Hungary's most exciting contemporary novelists--Kosztolanyi turns family sentiment on its head with an irony that is as telling now as it was nearly seventy years ago.

Skylark (Central European Classics)

Aczel, Richard

Oxford University Press

Kornél Esti

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

CAMBOURAKIS

Die Abenteuer des Kornél Esti (rororo Taschenbücher)

Genre Fiction

Rowohlt Taschenbuch

Nero, der blutige Dichter

Nero, der blutige Dichter: Roman

Religion & Spirituality

Christian Books & Bibles

Rowohlt Berlin

Barcelona. 21 cm. 319 p. Encuadernación en tapa blanda de editorial ilustrada. Colección 'Narrativa'. Kosztolányi, Dezsö 1885-1936. Traducción, Mária Szijj. Traducción de: Esti Kornél. Narrativa (Bruguera (Firma)) .. Este libro es de segunda mano y tiene o puede tener marcas y señales de su anterior propietario. ISBN: 978-84-02-42015-2

KORNEL ESTI. UN HEROE DE SU TIEMPO

BRUGUERA (SELLO)

Septiembre de 1899. En una pequena ciudad de provincias del Imperio austrohungaro, la hija de los Vajkay, llamada carinosamente Alondra, se dispone a pasar una semana de vacaciones con sus tios. La despedida en la estacion es dolorosa, pues los dias que dure la separacion se preven insufribles para los Vajkay. Sin embargo, poco sospecha el anciano matrimonio que en la estacion de ferrocarril se inicia precisamente un feliz periodo de redescubrimientos: la buena comida, la entranable y divertida compania de viejos amigos, la musica, la risa. En una semana coincidiran la alegria de vivir con la ausencia de esa hija solterona y poco agraciada, cuya presencia daba sentido y a la vez condicionaba la existencia de sus padres. Una novela magistral de uno de los mayores escritores hungaros del siglo XX.    /    September 1899. In a small provincial town of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the daughter of Vajkay, Alondra affectionately called, is preparing to spend a week on vacation with her uncles. The farewell at the station is painful, because the days of separation is expected to be unbearable for Vajkay. However, the old couple did not suspect that in the station would start exactly a happy period of rediscovery: good food, cozy and fun company of old friends, music, laughter. Within a week the joy of life coincide with the absence of such spinster daughter, whose presence gave sense and at the same time conditioned the existence of her parents. A masterful novel from one of the greatest Hungarian writers of the twentieth century.

ALONDRA (Spanish Edition)

B de Bolsillo (Ediciones B)

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