Tranquility

Attila Bartis

2009년 7월 · Archipelago

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Tranquility is a living seismograph of the internal quakes and ruptures of a mother and son trapped within an Oedipal nightmare amidst the suffocating totalitarian embrace of Communist Hungary. Andor Weér, a thirty-six-year-old writer, lives in a cramped apartment with his shut-in mother, Rebeka, who was once among the most celebrated stage actresses in Budapest. Unable to withstand her maniacal tyranny but afraid to leave her alone, their bitter interdependence spirals into a Sartrian hell of hatred, lies, and appeasement. Then Andor meets the beautiful and nurturing Eszter, a woman who seems to have no past, and they fall wildly in love at first sight. With a fulfilling life seemingly within reach for the first time, Andor decides that he is ready to bring Eszter home to meet Mother. Though Bartis’s characters are unrepentantly neurotic and dressed in the blackest humor, his empathy for them is profound. A political farce of the highest ironic order, concluding that "freedom is a condition unsuitable for humans," Tranquility is ultimately, at its splanchnic core, a complex psychodrama turned inside out, revealing with visceral splendor the grotesque notion that there’s nothing funnier than unhappiness.

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Attila Bartis, born in Targu Mures (Marosvasarhely), Romania, has been hailed by readers across Europe as one of the most highly inventive Central European literary mavericks writing today. After completing his degree in photography, Bartis published his first novel A Séta in 1995 along with a collection of short stories. He has also been awarded the Tibor Déry Prize and the Sandor Márai Prize in 2001 for Tranquility (A nyugalom). He lives in Budapest. Tranquility is his first novel to appear in English.

Imre Goldstein has translated from the Hungarian A Book of Memories, The End of a Family Novel, Love, Fire and Knowledge, and A Lovely Tale of Photography by Péter Nádas, A Feast in the Garden by György Konrad, The House of Sorel by Pál Salamon, as well as many plays, stories, poems, and essays from both Hungarian and Hebrew. He received a PhD in drama from CUNY and has written and directed many plays. Goldstein has also published several collections of poetry and a novel, November Spring (Novemberi tavasz).