Praise
Extras
An excerpt in LitHub
An excerpt in Hungarian Literature Online
Anna Gellért’s reading for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Translated from Hungarian by Judith Sollosy
Published: August 22, 2023
Paperback ISBN: 9781953861429
Ebook ISBN: 9781953861436
“Nothing approximates death as closely as photography.” In a small town in Communist Hungary, András Szabad’s childhood comes to an abrupt end with his father’s return from prison and the death of his loving mother. In search of new beginnings, András moves with his father to Budapest, where he discovers a passion for photography, for uncovering the invisible through the visible, and for fixing matter and memory so as to ward them against the inevitability of time. An unorthodox first encounter brings András together with Éva, and soon they become entangled in a psychosexual relationship of consuming passion, but also of bitterness and resentment. Unspooling like a roll of film, The End captures in frames of language the faces and places of András’ memory, which together form a fever-dream collage of an artist’s psyche. With electric precision and fluid dialogue, Attila Bartis weaves a sprawling family saga with 20th-century European history and offers an unflinchingly lucid yet boundlessly compassionate account of psychological devastation under authoritarianism.
An excerpt in LitHub
An excerpt in Hungarian Literature Online
Anna Gellért’s reading for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development