Szabó, Magda

In preewar Budapest three families live side by side on gracious Katalin Street, their lives closely intertwined. A game is played by the four children in which Bálint, the promising son of the Major, invariably chooses Irén Elekes, the headmaster's dutiful elder daughter, over her younger sister, the scatterbrained Blanka, and little Henriette Held, the daughter of the Jewish dentist. Their lives are torn apart in 1944 by the German occupation, which only the Elekes family survives intact. The postwar regime relocates them to a cramped Soviet-style apartment and they struggle to come to terms with social and political change, personal loss, and unstated feelings of guilt over the deportation of the Held parents and the death of little Henriette, who had been left in their protection. But the girl survives in a miasmal afterlife, and reappears at key moments as a mute witness to the inescapable power of past events."--

An eleven-year-old girl passes through the mysterious door of the Master Gatherer and finds herself in the center of a struggle between Good and Evil.

Eszter est une actrice célèbre. Son enfance refait surface quand elle apprend qu'Angela, une fille de son village natal dont elle enviait la vie, a épousé l'homme qu'elle a toujours aimé.

"When Ettie's husband dies, her daughter, Iza, insists that she give up the family house in the countryside and move to Budapest. Displaced from her community and her home, Ettie tries to find her place in this new life. Iza's Ballad is the story of a woman who loses her life's companion and a mother trying to get close to a daughter whom she has never truly known. It is about the meeting of the old-fashioned and the modern worlds and the beliefs we construct over a lifetime. Beautifully translated by the poet George Szirtes, this is a profoundly moving novel with the unforgettable power of Magda Szabo's award-winning The Door"--