Hungarian writer Antal Szerb (1901-1945) is recognized as one of the major Hungarian literary personalities of the twentieth century. His first novel was released when he was just 32. Shortly thereafter he was made a Professor of Literature at the University of Szeged, and was twice awarded the Baumgarten Prize. This release features several of his short stories, read in Hungarian. “His love affair with literature was passionate, intense, and serious, but for all that it was never humorless, and it never lost the flirtatious and giddy quality of an adolescent crush. Reading Szerb on literature – reading Szerb at all – is like watching a lover dote on the object of his affections... It is the disparity between literary perfection and drab actuality that motivates us, in Szerb’s view, to improve our world, to question its assumptions and tear at its established fabrics.” (Becca Rothfield, The New Republic) “The Hungarian master… left a scholarly body of criticism as well as fiction, including his masterpiece, Journey By Moonlight (1937) and some glorious stories gathered here.” (Eileen Battersby, Irish Times)
