The Pendragon Legend - Couverture souple

Szerb, Antal

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1908968400 ISBN 13 : 9781908968401

Editeur : Pushkin Press, 2013

Synopsis

A riotous literary pastiche from the 1930s, in which a young Hungarian scholar confronts dark forces in a Welsh castle shrouded in mystery

"An absolute treat... Szerb is a master novelist, a comedian whose powers transcend time and language" Nicholas Lezard, Guardian

At an end-of-season London soirée a young Hungarian scholar, Dr János Bátky, is introduced to the Earl of Gwynedd, a reclusive eccentric who is the subject of strange rumours. Invited to the family seat, Pendragon Castle in North Wales, Bátky receives a mysterious phone call warning him not to go. Once there, nothing is quite as it seems...

Antal Szerb's first novel is a gently satirical blend of gothic and romantic genres, crossed with a murder mystery to produce a fast-moving and often hilarious romp. But beneath the surface, Szerb's steely intelligence poses disturbingly modern questions about the nature of self and reality.

Antal Szerb was born in Budapest in 1901. Though of Jewish descent, he was baptised at an early age and remained a lifelong Catholic. He rapidly established himself as a formidable scholar, through studies of Ibsen and Blake and histories of English, Hungarian and world literature. He was a prolific essayist and reviewer, ranging across all the major European languages. Debarred by successive Jewish laws from working in a university, he was subjected to increasing persecution, and finally murdered in a forced labour camp in 1945. Pushkin Press publishes his novels The Pendragon Legend, Oliver VII and his masterpiece Journey by Moonlight, as well as the historical study The Queen's Necklace and Love in a Bottle and Other Stories.

A propos du livre

À propos des auteurs

Antal Szerb was born in Budapest in 1901. Best known in the West as a novelist and short story writer, he was also a prolific scholar whose interests ranged widely across the whole field of European literature. Debarred from a university post by reason of his Jewish ancestry, he taught in a commercial secondary school until increasing persecution led to his brutal death in a labour camp, in 1945. Yet the tone of his writing is almost always deceptively light, the fierce intelligence softened by a gentle tolerance, wry humour and understated irony. Pushkin Press's publications of Szerb's work include his novels Journey by Moonlight, Oliver VII and The Pendragon Legend, as well as the short story collection Love in a Bottle and the history The Queen's Necklace.

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.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Pushkin Press
• Date d'édition: 2013
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1908968400
• ISBN 13: 9781908968401
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 320
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible