New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, (1992) dj. Hardcover first edition - A major novel, the first in ten years, by Hungary's most distinguished writer -
the "rich, poetic story of a man, a family, and a country. David Kobra's enchanted childhood in a small town in the heart of Central Europe comes to an abrupt end. As the Jews of the town are being put on trains to concentration camps, young Kobra escapes to Budapest. He survives the war years in a protected house, grows up with death and violence, witnesses Soviet liberation, lives under Soviet oppression. David Kobra is a writer; he remembers, and he creates. Sharp images of the past alternate with the confused present." Translated from the Hungarian by Imre Goldstein. 394 pp. ISBN: 0-15130548X.