Péter Nádas Book order

The magnum opus of one one of Europe's greatest living writers. “Instead of a chronicle, a person tends to manufacture legends when he relates the story of his life for others,” Péter Nádas writes in his fiction masterpiece, Parallel Stories. Now, in his own memoir, the renowned author investigates what it might mean to reconstruct a life without recourse to the techniques and embellishments of traditional storytelling. Taking his firmly imbedded memories—the “illuminated details” that give this work its title—as his starting point, Nádas dissects their contents using a method inspired by Freudian dream interpretation. Sounds, scenes, smells, feelings—all are probed for details that might allow him to reconstruct what happened, and when and where. In order to weed out conscious or unconscious distortions, he deconstructs the stories of others, too—moving in concentric circles toward causes and circumstances, until their meaning and significance come to light. In a work that encompasses the tumultuous years of World War II and the Hungarian revolution, Nádas traces the hidden connections between the events of a life and assembles them into a memoir of unusual insight and exceptional power. Hailed by Deborah Eisenberg as an “extraordinary writer,” Nádas has confirmed his place among Europe’s greatest living authors.

A tongue-in-cheek textbook for how to live in our modern age.

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year Parallel Stories is a novel of extraordinary scope and depth, a masterwork that traces the fate of myriad Europeans—Hungarians, Jews, Germans, Gypsies—across the treacherous years of the mid–twentieth century. Three unusual men are at the heart of the novel: Hans von Wolkenstein, whose German mother has ties to the fascist-Nazi collaboration of the 1940s; Ágost Lippay Lehr, whose influential father has served Hungary's different political regimes for decades; and András Rott, who has his own dark record of mysterious activities abroad. Nádas weaves the social and political circumstances of their lives into a magnificent tapestry, aligning the uncanny parallels that link them across time and space. Fifteen years in the writing, and four in the translating, Parallel Stories is Péter Nádas's masterpiece—a daring and momentous novel from one of the great writers of our time.

Set against a backdrop of contemporary issues, this compelling narrative explores complex characters navigating personal and societal challenges. The story delves into themes of identity, resilience, and the impact of choices on relationships. With a blend of emotional depth and sharp wit, it invites readers to reflect on their own lives while engaging with the characters' journeys. The book's critical acclaim highlights its resonant storytelling and thought-provoking insights.

In this short story, a man shares his innermost thoughts as he experiences a heart attack on the street, only to be revived after three and a half minutes. It presents a compelling narrative that intertwines the appalling and the ordinary, exploring themes of pain, fear, and acceptance while navigating the delicate boundary between life and death. The swift nature of this near-death experience contrasts with a series of photographs documenting a wild pear tree in the author's garden over a year, capturing its transformations under varying light conditions. This juxtaposition highlights the differences between immediate experience and the concept of the hereafter, while also reflecting on the passage of mortal time. Péter Nádas, born in Budapest in 1942, began his career as a press photographer before turning to writing. His first collection of stories was published in 1967, followed by the bestselling novel A Book of Memories in 1986. Recognized as one of the most significant authors of his time, Nádas has received numerous accolades, including the Austrian State Prize for European Literature and the Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding. Steidl published his work Etwas Licht in 1991.

Die ungarische Fotografie des 20. Jahrhunderts hat große Namen von internationalem Rang aufzuweisen: Brassaď, Robert Capa, László Moholy-Nagy, André Kertész. Der Erzähler und Dramatiker Péter Nádas, Fotograf auch er, hat für dieses Buch rund vierzig Motive bedeutender ungarischer Fotografen ausgewählt und sie in einen spannungsreichen Dialog zu eigenen fotografischen Arbeiten gesetzt. Seine Suche nach den eigenen künstlerischen Wurzeln, nach „Seelenverwandten“, eröffnet zugleich einen höchst aufschlussreichen Blick auf die klassische ungarische Fotografie.

Tato kniha byla vydána českým nakladatelstvím Twisted Spoon Press, které sídlí v Praze a vydává díla českých a slovanských autorů v anglickém jazyce. Oficiální anotace nakladatele: Péter Nádas is one of the most renowned contemporary Hungarian authors. A Lovely Tale of Photography displays his essentially experimental orientation. It is a hallucinatory novella about a female photographer who is suffering from an undetermined illness. Confined to a sanatorium, where she is surrounded by a cast of stock characters speaking various languages, she is made to confront a reality other than that framed by her camera. The novel takes the form of short scenes, as if a film sequence, and this structure lends the text a fairy-tale, poetic quality similar to many surrealist works.

A second memoir, alternating with the first, is a novel the narrator is composing about a refined Belle Epoque aesthete, whose anti-bourgeois transgressions seem like emotionally overcharged versions of the narrator's own experiences.