Thy kingdom come: 19 short stories by 11 Hungarian authors

19 short stories by 11 excellent contemporary Hungarian authors with short biographies of the authors and translators. Authors: Adam Bodor, Lajos Grendel, Laszlo Kraszaforkai, Erin Lazar, Peter Lengyel, Aliz Mosonyi, Gyorgy Spiro, Magda Szabo, Dezso Tandori, Sandor Tar, Zsusza Vathy. Translated by Eszter Molnar.

"The very idea of collecting nineteen short stories seemingly at random, and in English to boot, justifiably invites a skeptical wince. Granted, all the representatives are eminent contemporary authors (eight men, three women, ranging from forty-five to eighty-two years of age) who have already achieved fame, even abroad. Still, the selection appears arbitrary and disproportionate (for example, the female writers are allotted a total of 30 pages out of 322), lacking any thematic or other conceptual unifying component except that each author (and work) has been translated into English and featured in the distinguished literary periodical The Hungarian Quarterly. Nevertheless, Thy Kingdom Come is a breakthrough on numerous levels.

The anthology promises "a wide variety of best quality Hungarian literature, along with a slice of Hungarian reality," and that it delivers, complete with authors' bios, awards, and lists of foreign editions of their works. A bonus is Eszter Molnar's superb translation: at last the text is in proper English, and there is an admirable homogeneity, allowing every author's voice distinction while maintaining a feel for the whole.

The stories, without exception, are wholly depressing, rendering unfathomable poverty, antiheroes beset by existential anguish, unredeemable alienation, total rootlessness, merciless exploitation (especially of children and the homeless), and almost invariably unbearable pain and suffering. A dark mood prevails and each denouement is tragic, bleak, or bittersweet at best, irrespective of the style, whether realism, naturalism, surrealism, stream of consciousness, absurdism, postmodernism, or utopianism."

Palatinus Publishers, 1998

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