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Satantango

Best Translated Book Award

Satantango

László Krasznahorkai

Set in an isolated Hungarian settlement under relentless rain, this novel follows the return of a figure who sets off a chain of deceit, money, control, and betrayal in a stalled community. In its apocalyptic confinement, the book steadily exposes the fragile hopes and failures of its characters.

Hungarian literaturecommunity collapsebetrayalapocalypsepower

Work Information

Only the promise of salvation spreads uneasily through the closed-off village.

The novel portrays the breakdown of relationships in an isolated village and the expectations that are rearranged through deceit. Its long, sticky narrative makes poverty and confinement feel like a force exerted by the story itself rather than a mere backdrop.

Review Summaries

  • Its unsettling atmosphere and overwhelming density are highly regarded, and it is received as a work that asks a great deal of its readers.

Book Information

Publisher
New Directions
Published
2013-12-10
Pages
274 pages
Language
英語
Size
13.72 x 2.03 x 20.32 cm
ISBN-13
9780811220897
ISBN-10
9780811220897
Price
2943 JPY
Category
洋書/Literature & Fiction/Mythology & Folk Tales/Fairy Tales

Satantango

The winner of the 2019 National Book Award for Translated Literature and the 2015 Man Booker International Prize for lifetime achievement, László Krasznahorkai was born in Gyula, Hungary. George Szirtes (b. 1948) is an award-winning poet and translator who settled in England after his family fled the Hungarian Uprising of 1956. His translation of Satantango by László Krasznahorkai won the 2013 Best Translated Book Award.

Reviews

  • タイムリーな配送

    予想よりも早く、期待通りの商品が届きました。

  • il fallait préciser que ce document n'était pas en français

    Ce n'est "que" la deuxième fois que je me fais avoir par un document qui n'est pas, contrairement à ce que la présentation m'en avait laissé penser, en français La première fois cela fut sans importance car le document était gratuit mais cette fois j'ai payé pour un livre que je ne lirai pas Dommage Veuillez être désormais plus précis dans la présentation et préciser en particulier la langue du document

  • Five Stars

    Curious and different, quirky and very readable.

  • Satantango casts a Beckett-like shadow...

    Satantango, a novel by the Hungarian novelist, Laszlo Krasznahorkai is not written for the faint of heart. It is set "somewhere" in eastern Europe during or after the Second World War. Like Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot", nothing much happens. A group of villagers get word that a man from their collective past,who was revered by all of them, is returning to the village. The men of the village spend their time anticipating his return by getting drunk, dancing, lusting after other men's wifes, and plotting betrayals of their neighbours. At least one of the village's women sees this hero's return as her personal salvation, releasing her from a loveless, albeit economically expedient marriage. Like the landscape of war and communism the village is a place of mud, rain and desolation... a landscape without hope, or any kind of future. If you are a reader who likes linear writing with a plot that gives you a beginning, middle and end, do not read this novel. However, if you are a reader who seeks to immerse yourself in a brilliant, absurdist novel about the state of nihilistic dispair and utter hopelessess that pervaded Eastern Europe during the mid-twentieth century...this is the tale for you. Krasznhorkai's writing is predicated on the creation of a kind of scaffolding out of which ascends an architecture of bleak gothic-like themes and motifs...all sculpted in huge, pages-long sentences... It is disorienting and yet, so beautifully crafted that I couldn't put this novel down. Oh, as an afterthought, I have to assume that Krasznahorkai's translator is very, very skilled; ironically, I never felt "lost" in this haunting, nay harrowing tale.

  • Hard work for little reward

    Nice language but didn’t go anywhere. I gave up after 4 chapters.

  • Good seller, good book

    The seller is trustworthy. Item shipped on time, arrived in perfect condition. The book is incredible. Highly recommended.

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