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Peter Nadas was born in Budapest in 1942. Among his works translated into English are the novels A Book of Memories, The End of a Family Story, Love and his most recent, Parallel Stories; a collection of stories and essays, Fire and Knowledge and two pieces of short fiction, A Lovely Tale of Photography and Peter Nadas- Own Death. He lives with his wife in Gombosszeg, Hungary.
Told from a boy's point of view, this is a terrifying and wonderful story of a child's experience of living in a totalitarian state and the disintegration of his family. The background is Hungary in the 1950s at the height of Stalinist repression. The boy's father is an undercover agent who appears only occasionally, arriving and leaving in darkness. Nadas's prose is vivid, often poetic and initially a little puzzling, but as a grandfather begins to tell his grandson about his ancestors, the reader is transported into a timeless realm where the story is all. The family is Jewish and according to the grandfather can trace its ancestry back to the family of Aaron, brother of Moses. As reality becomes harsher and more threatening, the boy becomes increasingly dependent on the world his grandfather creates, although this, too, has to end when the boy is carried off to an orphanage. This is an unusual and beautiful account of the continuity that is family, and the threats from a repressive outside world. (Kirkus UK)
