So Much for the Granta
Interesting review here of recent translation by the Hungarians Attila Bartis, Laszlo Krasznahorkai, and Ádám Bodor. The first two authors are among my favorites (Bartis’ Tranquility is awesome and won the first ever Best Translated Book Award; for Krasznahorkai, start with Satantango). I’ve never heard of Ádám Bodor before, but the grouping bodes well.
It looks like none of Bodor’s atuff is currently available in English. Maybe one of these fine presses will get on it. Intriguingly, the author of the review, Juan Manuel Ortiz, claims Bodor is the best of the bunch. Hard to believe:
El mayor de la terna es el transilvano Ádám Bodor (1936), la figura más importante de la literatura húngara actual, que estuvo cuando aún era casi un niño en la cárcel, donde conoció todo tipo de horrores y, posteriormente, sufrió la política nacionalista rumana de eliminación sistemática de las diferencias culturales de las minorías. Prueba de ello es su extraordinaria novela El distrito de Sinistra (1992), que se desarrolla en un espacio ficticio que recuerda en muchos aspectos a la Santa María de Onetti, una región fronteriza y multiétnica al norte de los Cárpatos que viene a prolongar el mito literario de Transilvania . . .
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I’m surprised Bodor isn’t available in English if it’s available in Spanish and (from own experience) in French. But now that Hungarian literature seems to be more on the English book publishers’ map one can hope that will change. The Sinistra District is really good.