{"product_id":"berlinhamlet-isbn-9781681370545","title":"Berlin-Hamlet","description":"\u003cb\u003eShortlisted for the 2017 National Translation Award in Poetry and the 2017 Best Translated Book Award in Poetry\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBefore his tragic death, Szilárd Borbély had gained a name as one of Europe's most searching new poets. \u003ci\u003eBerlin-Hamlet\u003c\/i\u003e—one of his major works—evokes a stroll through the phantasmagoric shopping arcades described in Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project, but instead of the delirious image fragments of nineteenth-century European culture, we pass by disembodied scraps of written text, remnants as ghostly as their authors: primarily Franz Kafka but also Benjamin himself or the Hungarian poets Attila József or Erno Szép. Paraphrases and reworked quotations, drawing upon the vanished prewar legacy, particularly its German Jewish aspects, appear in sharp juxtaposition with images of post-1989 Berlin frantically rebuilding itself in the wake of German reunification. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis English-only edition does not include the poems in their original language.“[Borbély’s] poetry is epoch-making.” —Péter Nádas\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “\u003ci\u003eBerlin-Hamlet \u003c\/i\u003eis a rich tapestry of ‘subjective’, ‘pseudo-subjective’ and ‘meditative’ texts, all related to present-day Berlin, though tinged with memories of more sinister places like Wannsee, where the decision about the systematic extermination of European Jews was taken by Nazi bureaucrats in 1942.” —\u003ci\u003eWorld Literature Today\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “[Borbély] is considered one of the most important figures in contemporary Hungarian literature, having had an immense impact on the transformation of Hungarian poetry in the last decade, strongly influencing the conceptualization of poetry’s social role and linguistic-thematic possibilities...Borbély’s poetry, prose, and essays try to bring the readers closer to the lives of those who cannot speak of their trauma or suffering. They can be uneducated and poor villagers, survivors of the Holocaust, women grieving after a miscarriage, or victims of terrible aggression. Through Borbély’s texts we readers become increasingly less cruel-hearted.” —László Bedecs, \u003ci\u003eAsymptote\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eSzilárd Borbély\u003c\/b\u003e (1963–2014) was born in Fehérgyarmat in eastern Hungary and studied  Hungarian philology and literature at the University of Debrecen, where  he later taught. An authority on Hungarian literature of the  late-Baroque period as well as a writer, Borbély was awarded several  literary prizes, including the prestigious Palladium Prize in 2005. His  first major critical success was his third book, \u003ci\u003eHosszú nap el\u003c\/i\u003e (Long Day Away, 1993), praised by such writers as Péter Esterházy and Péter Nádas. His verse collections \u003ci\u003eHalotti pompa: Szekvenciák \u003c\/i\u003e(Final Matters: Sequences, 2004) and his novel, \u003ci\u003eNincstelenek\u003c\/i\u003e (\u003ci\u003eThe Dispossessed\u003c\/i\u003e,  2013), are considered among the most important Hungarian works of  literature of the early millennium. His poems have appeared in English  in \u003ci\u003eThe American Reader\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eAsymptote\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003ePoetry\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003ci\u003eBerlin-Hamlet\u003c\/i\u003e is his first full collection to be published in English.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eOttilie Mulzet\u003c\/b\u003e received the Best Translated Book Award in 2014 for her translation of László Krasznahorkai’s \u003ci\u003eSeiobo There Below\u003c\/i\u003e. Other translations include Borbély’s \u003ci\u003eThe Dispossessed \u003c\/i\u003eand Gábor Schein’s \u003ci\u003eLazarus\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"NYRB Poets","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302544888037,"sku":"NP9781681370545","price":14.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781681370545.jpg?v=1767722435","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/berlinhamlet-isbn-9781681370545","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}