What is it to be Hungarian? What does it feel like? Most Hungarians are convinced that the rest of the world just doesn't get them. They are right. True, much of the world thinks highly of Hungarians--for reasons ranging from their heroism in the 1956 revolution to their genius as mathematicians, physicists, and financiers. But Hungarians do often seem to be living proof of the old joke that Magyars are in fact Martians: they may be situated in the very heart of Europe, but they are equipped with a confounding language, extraterrestrial (albeit endearing) accents, and an unearthly way of thinking.
What most Hungarians learn from life about the Magyar mind is now available, for the first time, in this user-friendly guide to what being Hungarian is all about.
The Essential Guide to Being Hungarian brings together twelve authors well-versed in the quintessential ingredients of being Hungarian--from the stereotypical Magyar man to the stereotypical Magyar woman, foods to folk customs, livestock to literature, film to philosophy, politics to porcelain, and scientists to sports.
In fifty short, highly readable, often witty, sometimes politically incorrect, but always candid articles, the authors demonstrate that being credibly Hungarian--like being French, Polish or Japanese--is largely a matter of carrying around in your head a potpourri of conceptions and preconceptions acquired over the years from your elders, society, school, the streets, and mass media.
Compacting this wealth of knowledge into an irresistible little book, The Essential Guide to Being Hungarian is an indispensable reference that will teach you how to be Hungarian, even if you already are.

The Essential Guide to Being Hungarian: 50 Facts & Facets of Nationhood

Bori, István

Reference

New Europe Books

László Bíró's last name is, in much of the world, a synonym for his revolutionary writing tool. But few people know that Bíró began his career in interwar Budapest as a journalist frustrated with spotty ink; that he escaped fascism by fleeing to Paris and, finally, to Buenos Aires; that a fellow Hungarian, Andor Goy, also played a vital role in the pen's development⎯and that, in a tragic twist of shared fate, business pressures and politics ultimately deprived both men of their rights to the ballpoint pen. Taking us from Hitler's Europe in 1938, to Argentina, where Bíró settled, and to Communist-era Hungary, where Goy lived out his life, Ballpoint is a painstakingly researched, absorbing narrative that reads simultaneously like a work of history and a novel.
György Moldova is one of Hungary's most successful―and prolific―writers, and he is respected in particular for his achievements on the nonfiction front. He has earned the Kossuth Prize, Hungary's most prestigious literary honor, and his work has been translated into many languages, including English, German, Russian, and Chinese. He is the only Hungarian author to have achieved sales of 600,000 copies, and he continues to fare well in the country's bestseller lists to this day. Born in 1934, he lives in Budapest with his family. The author lives in Budapest.
"Mr. Moldova tells this tale of ingenuity and disappointed hopes with considerable verve; his book is a page-turner." ⎯Wall Street Journal
"In terms of history-making inventions, the ballpoint pen is no electric light bulb, but its story is far wilder." ⎯Maclean's (Canada's leading news magazine)
"Ballpoint reads like a fast-paced mystery. Although we know from the start that its technological protagonist⎯the ballpoint pen⎯will triumph, we find ourselves repeatedly surprised by the story's unfolding episodes of international intrigue, financial deception, and legal shenanigans." ⎯Henry Petroski, author of The Pencil and The Essential Engineer
"Part biography, part historical novel, this fascinating book tells the remarkable story of László Bíró and Andor Goy, the two Hungarians who made the first workable ballpoint pen and who, despite the resounding success of their product, earned almost nothing from it." ⎯John Emsley, author of Molecules of Murder and The Elements of Murder
"The tale of László Bíró and Andor Goy ... is a wonderful illustration of the role that human passions, foibles, and genius play in shaping the world around us." ⎯Robert Friedel, author of Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty

Ballpoint: A Tale of Genius and Grit, Perilous Times, and the Invention that Changed the Way We Write

History

Moldova, György

Europe

This classic dystopian satire has been compared to the likes of Brave New World, Gulliver's Travels and The Wizard of Oz. Voyage to Kazohinia is a tour de force of twentieth-century literature--and it is here published in English for the first time outside of Hungary. Sándor Szathmári's novel chronicles the travels of a modern Gulliver on the eve of World War II. A shipwrecked English ship's surgeon finds himself on an unknown island whose inhabitants, the Hins, live a technologically advanced existence without emotions, desires, arts, money, or politics. Soon unhappy amid this bleak perfection, Gulliver asks to be admitted to the closed settlement of the Behins, beings with souls and atavistic human traits. He has seen nothing yet. A massively entertaining mix of satire and science fiction, Voyage to Kazohinia has seen half a dozen editions in Hungary in decades since its original publication and remains the country's most popular cult classic.

Voyage to Kazohinia

Humor & Entertainment

Szathmari, Sandor

Humor

Mustering his extensive experience on the scene of the world's richest source of vampire lore, Transylvania, historian and author István Pivárcsi seeks to peel away the effects of popular culture and set the record straight, addressing essential questions in dozens of bite-size chapters: How did vampire legends emerge in the Balkans, Romania, and Transylvania? How did other monsters eventually coalesce as what we know as vampires? Who was the real Vlad the Impaler, and how did he come to personify the classic vampire? How did vampire-related oral traditions evolve over the centuries—and then explode with unprecedented force in both literature and popular culture from the mid-nineteenth century on? The ideal short reference for anyone with at least a passing interest in the undead, Just a Bite includes an extensive two-part appendix comprising a comprehensive glossary of vampire terms as well as a chronology of human beings' fascination (and interaction) with vampires through history.

Just a Bite: A Transylvania Vampire Expert's Short History of the Undead

Politics & Social Sciences

Pivarcsi, Istvan

Social Sciences

Keeping Bedlam at Bay in the Prague Café tells the story of John Shirting, a socially inept, quiet young American who has left his country for mysterious reasons and, in a fast-changing capital of Eastern Europe, resolves to recreate one aspect of society in his own, crazily capitalist image. He makes it his mission to return to the frothy fold of the Chicago-based chain of cafes that once employed him, as a barista―Capo―by singlehandedly breaking into a new market and making freshly post-communist Prague safe for free-market capitalism. Full of smart writing, cynical humor, and eccentric characters, Keeping Bedlam at Bay in the Prague Café is a brilliant satire. Poised to be an underground classic, it asks: what does it mean to be sane in a fast-changing world?
M. Henderson Ellis, the author of Petra K and the Blackhearts (New Europe Books), is a graduate of Bennington College and a Chicago native who currently lives in Budapest, Hungary.
"An ode to expatriate living, culture clashes, and the heady days of early 1990s Europe, this novel is a manic, wild ride.... [D]arkly comic ... immersive, nostalgic, and thoroughly enjoyable." ―Booklist
"With fresh and evocative language, Ellis delivers us into a frenetic and history-haunted world. By turns strange and subtle, imaginative and knowing―and also often very funny―this assured and original debut novel is a must-read for anyone, like me, who ever daydreamed about expat life in 1990s Eastern Europe but didn't have the nerve to go for it." ―Rosie Schaap, author of Drinking With Men, Drink columnist, New York Times Magazine
"As the title suggests, disorder predominates in Ellis's debut novel set in Prague during the dizzying days of the early 1990s. John Shirting is a quirky and unbalanced former barista from Chicago with a pill habit who winds up in the newly capitalist city hawking a plan to establish a chain of mobster-themed coffee shops... . The picaresque absurdity will be familiar to fans of Thomas Pynchon, along with the low-grade paranoia and aggressively whimsical dialogue... . . Ellis vividly re-creates the atmosphere of a city in the throes of transformation as well as the American Quixotes who populate this new frontier." ―Publishers Weekly

Keeping Bedlam at Bay in the Prague Cafe: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Ellis, M. Henderson

Humor & Satire

Being Polish is no joke. For ten million people of Polish ancestry in the United States, as well as many who have settled in the UK since the fall of communism, it is a heartfelt matter⎯and amid all the travel guides and guides to Polish language, folklore, and customs, there is no single, comprehensive, reader-friendly and yet ever-informative reference on what it means to be Polish. 
Enter The Essential Guide to Being Polish⎯the go-to concise resource for anyone looking to reconnect with their culture or, indeed, hoping that their friends, children, or colleagues learn something about their heritage.  Divided into three sections to make for an easy-to-follow format⎯Poland in Context, Poles in Poland, and Poles Abroad⎯this guide covers just about everything and does so in a style that is at once entertaining and informative: the country’s history and geography, wars, Jews in Poland, the communist past, the post-communist past and present, language, kings and queens, religion/Catholicism (with special focus on Pope John Paul II), holidays, food, and drink. What is a real Polish wedding all about? That, too, is addressed succinctly and with flair in this guide. Other chapters cover literature, music, art, famous scientists, Polish men and Polish women, Poles in America, Poles in the UK, Poles and the EU, and last but not least, Polish pride.

The Essential Guide to Being Polish: 50 Facts & Facets of Nationhood

Spysz, Anna

Turek, Marta

When the legendary Romulus killed his brother Remus and founded the city of Rome in 753 BCE, Plovdiv―today the second-largest city in Bulgaria―was thousands of years old. Indeed, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, Brussels, Amsterdam are all are mere infants compared to Plovdiv. This is just one of the paradoxes that haunts and defines the New Europe, that part of Europe that was freed from Soviet bondage in 1989, and which is at once both much older than the modern Atlantic-facing power centers of Western Europe while also being much younger than them. Eastern Europe! is a brief and concise (but informative) introduction to Eastern Europe and its myriad customs and history.
Even those knowledgeable about Western Europe often see Eastern Europe as terra incognito, with a sign on the border declaring “Here be monsters.” Tomek Jankowski's book is a gateway to understanding both what unites and separates Eastern Europeans from their Western brethren, and how this vital region has been shaped by but has also left its mark on Western Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. It is a reader-friendly guide to a region that is all too often mischaracterized as remote, insular, and superstitious.
The book comprises three parts, The first sums up modern linguistic, geographic, and religious contours of Eastern Europe, while the second, main part delves into the region's history, from the earliest origins of Europe up to the end of the Cold War. Closing the book is a section that makes sense of geographical name references -- many cities, rivers, or regions have different names -- and also includes an "Eastern Europe by Numbers" feature that provides charts describing the populations, politics, and economies of the region today. Throughout are boxed-off anecdotes ("Useless Trivia") describing fascinating aspects of Eastern European history or culture.

Eastern Europe!: Everything You Need to Know About the History (and More) of a Region that Shaped Our World and Still Does

Jankowski, Tomek

The first major novel about Eastern Europe's Roma, or Travelers (Gypsies), by a Romani author, The Color of Smoke is both a work of passion chronicling one young man's rise to manhood and an epic work that conjures up a dark era of world history. It is an undiscovered classic that has been published in several languages since its 1975 appearance in Hungary--but never before in English.
Inspired by the author's own boyhood in World War II-era Hungary, it is a beautifully written coming-of-age story of a Romani boy torn between the community of his birth and the mainstream society that both entices him and rejects him.

The Color of Smoke: A Novel

Lakatos, Menyhert

United States

In the nineteen extraordinary stories that comprise The Devil Is a Black Dog and Other Stories, writer and photojournalist Sándor Jászberényi shows us the human side of war and revolution in the contemporary Middle East and Africa, and of the social upheaval that has held Eastern Europe in its grip since the fall of communism. Characters contemplate the meaning of home, love, despair, family, and friendship against the backdrop of brutality. From Cairo to the Gaza Strip, from Benghazi to Budapest, religious men have their faith challenged, and people under the duress of war or traumatic personal memories deal with the feelings that emerge. Often they seem to suppress these feelings¾but, no, not quite.
Set in countries the author has reported from or lived in, these stories are all told from different perspectives, but always with the individual at the center: the mother, the soldier, the martyr, the religious man, the journalist, and so on. They form a kaleidoscope of miniworlds, of moments, of decisions that together put a face, an emotion, a thought behind humans who confront war and conflict. Although they are fiction, they could have all happened exactly as they are told. Each story leaves a powerful visual image, an unforgettable image you conjure up again and again.
Sándor Jászberényi (Shahn-dor Yahs-ber-ay-ñee) is the author of The Most Beautiful Night of the Soul: More Stories from the Middle East and Beyond (New Europe Books, forthcoming December 2018). In 2017 he received Hungary's Libri Literary Prize. As a correspondent for Hungarian news sites, he has covered the conflict with Islamic State, unrest in Ukraine, the revolutions in Egypt and Libya, and the Gaza War. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times Magazine, AGNI, and the Brooklyn Rail. He divides his time between Budapest and Cairo.
"Heady, dizzying writing.... A master class in how to tell a war story." ⎯Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[An] impressive debut collection ... [by] a Hungarian news correspondent who has covered the conflicts in Eastern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East." ⎯Publishers Weekly
"In the context of Hungarian literature, Jászberényi is a dangerous heretic, a cosh-wielding ruffian, [his] page[s] ... filled with so much testosterone-fuelled bare-knuckle action.... Whereas Péter Eszterházy, László Krasznahorkai and Péter Nádas write long, intricate sentences full of learned allusions, piling up massive paragraphs, one on top of the other, Jászberényi, like his characters, gets straight to the action."⎯Guardian

The Devil is a Black Dog: Stories from the Middle East and Beyond

Jaszberenyi, Sandor

Literary

It is 1968. Across America, citizens march for social reform and an end to the Vietnam War. Amid all this, Surya Green⎯a New York-born, self-absorbed, modern young woman⎯is a student at Stanford University, blithely pursuing a graduate degree in communication. Her view of life's purpose unexpectedly starts to expand when she says "Yes" when her Stanford film mentor selects her for a writing job at Zagreb Film in Yugoslavia. Family and friends marvel at her courage, or foolishness. The Zagreb studio may be the renowned producer of the first non-American animated film to win an Oscar, but it is in a country most Americans fear and reject as "communist." Green has no idea that her stay in Yugoslavia will ultimately take her beyond national borders to the outermost limits of her mind.
Surya Green, who grew up in New York City and received degrees from Stanford University (MA in communications) and Barnard College (BA in American studies) is the author of The Call of the Sun: A Woman's Journey to the Heart of Wisdom (Element Books Ltd., UK, 1997). She has published magazine articles and has led gatherings, given workshops, and spoken on transformational themes in the Netherlands, USA, UK, and India. A member of the Dutch Association of Journalists and the International Federation of Journalists, she has also worked as a professional actress and singer. She lives in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where she established the nonprofit foundation www.SunConscious.org in 2000.
"Pensive, engrossing … The author's sensitive, searching prose makes it feel as though readers are eavesdropping on her thoughts, making every page highly personal and captivating…. An impressive portrait of a country in a tumultuous time but also of a young woman in an equally tumultuous time, eventually heading home with eyes open to the absolute need for equality for women, other races, and for the poor and disadvantaged." ⎯Booklist (starred review)
"Surya Green's fascinating book narrates two journeys undertaken simultaneously... . It is often said that travel broadens the mind. In Green's case, immersion in Tito's Yugoslavia served to deepen as well as broaden her knowledge of herself, and the social orders of both Yugoslavia and her American homeland." ―Henry Breitrose, Stanford University
"An important testament. I have not before read an account of the former Yugoslavia made so plain." ―John Grierson, pioneering documentary filmmaker

Once Upon a Yugoslavia: When the American Way Met Tito's Third Way

Green, Surya

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the New Europe Books publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by New Europe Books