logo
Wrong email address or username
Wrong email address or username
Incorrect verification code
Katalin Street - Magda Szabó
Katalin Street
by: (author)
4.00 10
In prewar 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,... show more
In prewar 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.

As in The Door and Iza’s Ballad, Magda Szabó conducts a clear-eyed investigation into the ways in which we inflict suffering on those we love. Katalin Street, which won the 2007 Prix Cévennes for Best European novel, is a poignant, somber, at times harrowing novel, but beautifully conceived and truly unforgettable.
show less
Format: paperback
ISBN: 9781681371528 (1681371529)
Publisher: New York Review of Book
Pages no: 216
Edition language: English
Bookstores:
Community Reviews
Chris Blocker
Chris Blocker rated it
4.0 Review: Katalin Street
"...no one had told them that the most frightening thing of all about the loss of youth is not what is taken away but what is granted in exchange. Not wisdom. Not security. Not sound judgment or tranquility. Only the awareness of universal disintegration.""...they had learned that is everyone's life...
Books by Magda Szabó
On shelves
Share this Book
Need help?