Short stories
Igéző
Not translated into English
József Lengyel · 1961
Synopsis
Stories of the Soviet camps and of Siberian internal exile. In the one that gives the book its title, András, a deportee, lives in 1949 in a village in the Soviet North: he is said to be a citizen with full rights, but if he leaves the village he faces twenty years in prison. He guards the fields, makes charcoal with Micha, then becomes a forest warden under the eye of Ievseï; in this closed world, the ageing foreigner gradually pushes those around him towards goodness and humanity.
Context
Partly sketched in Siberia, these stories could appear only after the author's return to Hungary. The volume came out in 1961 from Szépirodalmi, with the title story and five other texts on the Soviet camps and internal exile. In 1962, another story of the cycle, Elejétől végig, appeared in Hungary a month before the Hungarian translation of Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich; the cycle, extended to twelve texts, was reissued in 1964 under the title Elévült tartozás.
Who it is for
Short, sober stories, made up mostly of dialogue; the title story exists in English, and no French translation of the collection has been located.
Prizes and reception
The book that earned its author the Kossuth Prize in 1963, cited in the award alongside his body of work as a whole.
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The pages consulted to check this page.