Abigail
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Description
"A school story for grownups that is also about our inability or refusal to protect children from history" SARAH MOSS
"Of all Szabo's novels, Abigail deserves the widest readership. It's an adventure story, brilliantly written" TIBOR FISCHER
Of all her novels, Magda Szabó's Abigail is indeed the most widely read in her native Hungary. Now, fifty years after it was written, it appears for the first time in English, joining Katalin Street and The Door in a loose trilogy about the impact of war on those who have to live with the consequences.
It is late 1943 and Hitler, exasperated by the slowness of his Hungarian ally to act on the "Jewish question" and alarmed by the weakness on his southern flank, is preparing to occupy the country. Foreseeing this, and concerned for his daughter's safety, a Budapest father decides to send her to a boarding school away from the capital.
A lively, sophisticated, somewhat spoiled teenager, she is not impressed by the reasons she is given, and when the school turns out to be a fiercely Puritanical one in a provincial city a long way from home, she rebels outright. Her superior attitude offends her new classmates and things quickly turn sour.
It is the start of a long and bitter learning curve that will open her eyes to her arrogant blindness to other people's true motives and feelings. Exposed for the first time to the realities of life for those less privileged than herself, and increasingly confronted by evidence of the more sinister purposes of the war, she learns lessons about the nature of loyalty, courage, sacrifice and love.
Translated from the Hungarian by Len Rix
Book Information
Posts
Ich habe sehr viele ungarische Bücher gelesen, aber dieses Buch gefällt mir am besten. Ich komme aus Ungarn, deshalb gefällt mir Abigél sehr gut. Die Geschichte spielt die Stadt Árkód, weil dort gibt es eine Schule, wo die Hauptfigur Georgina Vitay ( Gina) lebt und lernt. Ich empfehle jeden Menschen dieses Buch, weil die Geschichte spielt auch den II. Weltkrieg, und das ist interessant, finde ich. Also Lesen wir!!
Ein nettes Buch
Das ist kein Buch, das einen verschlingt und nicht mehr loslässt. Man liest diese nette Coming-of-Age-Geschichte aber trotzdem gerne, und auch wenn die Plot-Twists wirklich alles andere als überraschend kommen, macht es doch Spaß, dem Ganzen ein wenig zu folgen und sich auf diese aus der Zeit gefallene Welt einzulassen.
Description
"A school story for grownups that is also about our inability or refusal to protect children from history" SARAH MOSS
"Of all Szabo's novels, Abigail deserves the widest readership. It's an adventure story, brilliantly written" TIBOR FISCHER
Of all her novels, Magda Szabó's Abigail is indeed the most widely read in her native Hungary. Now, fifty years after it was written, it appears for the first time in English, joining Katalin Street and The Door in a loose trilogy about the impact of war on those who have to live with the consequences.
It is late 1943 and Hitler, exasperated by the slowness of his Hungarian ally to act on the "Jewish question" and alarmed by the weakness on his southern flank, is preparing to occupy the country. Foreseeing this, and concerned for his daughter's safety, a Budapest father decides to send her to a boarding school away from the capital.
A lively, sophisticated, somewhat spoiled teenager, she is not impressed by the reasons she is given, and when the school turns out to be a fiercely Puritanical one in a provincial city a long way from home, she rebels outright. Her superior attitude offends her new classmates and things quickly turn sour.
It is the start of a long and bitter learning curve that will open her eyes to her arrogant blindness to other people's true motives and feelings. Exposed for the first time to the realities of life for those less privileged than herself, and increasingly confronted by evidence of the more sinister purposes of the war, she learns lessons about the nature of loyalty, courage, sacrifice and love.
Translated from the Hungarian by Len Rix
Book Information
Posts
Ich habe sehr viele ungarische Bücher gelesen, aber dieses Buch gefällt mir am besten. Ich komme aus Ungarn, deshalb gefällt mir Abigél sehr gut. Die Geschichte spielt die Stadt Árkód, weil dort gibt es eine Schule, wo die Hauptfigur Georgina Vitay ( Gina) lebt und lernt. Ich empfehle jeden Menschen dieses Buch, weil die Geschichte spielt auch den II. Weltkrieg, und das ist interessant, finde ich. Also Lesen wir!!
Ein nettes Buch
Das ist kein Buch, das einen verschlingt und nicht mehr loslässt. Man liest diese nette Coming-of-Age-Geschichte aber trotzdem gerne, und auch wenn die Plot-Twists wirklich alles andere als überraschend kommen, macht es doch Spaß, dem Ganzen ein wenig zu folgen und sich auf diese aus der Zeit gefallene Welt einzulassen.