Book description
On his way to a linguists' conference in Helsinki, Budai finds
himself in a strange city where he can't understand a word anyone
says. One claustrophobic day blurs into another as he desperately
struggles to survive in this vastly overpopulated metropolis where
there are as many languages as there are people. Fearing that his wife
will have given him up for dead, he finds comfort in an unconventional
relationship with the elevator-operator in the hotel. A suspenseful
and haunting Hungarian classic, and a vision of hell unlike any other
imagined. 'With time, Metropole will find its due place in the
twentieth-century library, on the same shelf as The Trial and 1984.'
G. O. Châteaureynaud 'In the same way that Kafka becomes relevant
again every time you renew your driver's license, Karinthy captures
that enduring, horrifying and exhilarating state of being at the mercy
of an unfamiliar land.' NPR
'With time, Metropole will find its due place in the
twentieth-century library, on the same shelf as The Trial and 1984.' G.
O. Chateaureynaud 'In the same way that Kafka becomes relevant again
every time you renew your driver's license, Karinthy captures that
enduring, horrifying and exhilarating state of being at the mercy of an
unfamiliar land.' NPR Author: Ferenc Karinthy was born in Budapest in
1921. He obtained a PhD in linguistics and went on to be a translator
and editor, as well as an award-winning novelist, playwright, journalist
and water polo champion. He is the author of over a dozen novels.
Metropole is the first to be translated into English. Translator: George
Szirtes is a celebrated poet and translator. He has won both the
Geoffery Faber Memorial Prize and the T. S. Eliot Prize for his poetry.
He teaches at the University of East Anglia.
