George Szirtes Knihy

Winner of the 2015 Man Booker International PrizeThe Melancholy of Resistance, László Krasznahorkai's magisterial, surreal novel, depicts a chain of mysterious events in a small Hungarian town.A circus, promising to display the stuffed body of the largest whale in the world, arrives in the dead of winter, prompting bizarre rumours. Word spreads that the circus folk have a sinister purpose in mind, and the frightened citizens cling to any manifestation of order they can find - music, cosmology, fascism.The novel's characters are unforgettable: the evil Mrs. Eszter, plotting her takeover of the town; her weakling husband; and Valuska, our hapless hero with his head in the clouds, who is the tender centre of the book, the only pure and noble soul to be found.Compact, powerful and intense, The Melancholy of Resistance, as its enormously gifted translator George Szirtes puts it, 'is a slow lava flow of narrative, a vast black river of type.' And yet, miraculously, the novel, in the words of Guardian, 'lifts the reader along in lunar leaps and bounds.'

Při zběžném pohledu by se zdálo, že Sándor Márai v románu Judita rozehrává konvenční manželský trojúhelník. Když se ale začteme, ukáže se, že v tomto příběhu nejde o klasickou nevěru ani o žádnou třetí, neviditelnou a osudovou postavu v pozadí. Ze svědectví o manželském životě a vzájemném vztahu protagonistů vyplývá jiné, mnohem hlubší drama. Oba vyprávějí stejný příběh, ve kterém jako by hlavním zdrojem nesnází byla odlišnost ženského a mužského pohledu či nepatrné rozdíly hodnot a instinktů, které si každý z nich přináší ze svého prostředí. Ve skutečnosti však ona i on usilují o to, aby jim jejich protějšek bezvýhradně porozuměl.Ve vzrušujícím, hluboce psychologickém dramatu na hraně thrilleru, plném jemných rozporů a překvapivých paralel, vyjádřil Márai nadčasové porozumění lásce i vášni a mistrovsky v detailu rozehrál stěží uchopitelné nuance a vystihl nepřekročitelné hranice ve vztazích mezi lidmi. Hranice, které nakonec vypovídají o konečném smyslu života.

This anthology of new writing promotes contemporary literature of the English language from Britain and the rest of the Commonwealth. It contains new names among older, recognizable names and includes short stories, poems, novels in progress and short fiction.

“The Dog adopted the Ancsas in the spring of ’48”: so the story begins. The Ancsas are a middle-aged couple living on the outskirts of Budapest in a ruinous Hungary that is just beginning to wake up from the nightmare of World War II. The new Communist government promises to set things straight, and Mr. Ancsa, an engineer, is as eager to get to work building the future as he is to forget the past. The last thing he has time for is a little mongrel bitch, pregnant with her first litter. But Niki knows better, and before long she is part of the Ancsa household. The Ancsas even take her along with them when Mr. Ancsa’s new job requires a move to an apartment in the city. Then Mr. Ancsa is swept up in a political crackdown—disappearing without a trace. For five years he does not return, five years of absence, silence, fear, and the constant struggle to survive—five years during which Mrs. Ancsa and Niki have only each other. The story of Niki, an ordinary dog, and the Ancsas, a no less ordinary couple, is an extraordinarily touching, utterly unsentimental, parable about caring, kindness, and the endurance of love.

It is midnight, October 31st 1758 and Giacomo Casanova has escaped from a Venetian prison after sixteen months consigned to darkness and the underworld. Shaking off the enforced solitude, Casanova makes his way Bolzano - the small village where he was dealt a cruel hand.