{"product_id":"izas-ballad-isbn-9781681370347","title":"Iza's Ballad","description":"From the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Door\u003c\/i\u003e, selected by \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review \u003c\/i\u003eas one of the ten best books of 2015\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn NYRB Classics Original\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLike Magda Szabó’s internationally acclaimed novel \u003ci\u003eThe Door\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eIza’s Ballad\u003c\/i\u003e is a striking story of the relationship between two women, in this case a mother and a daughter. Ettie, the mother, is old and from an older world than the rapidly modernizing Communist Hungary of the years after World War II. From a poor family and without formal education, Ettie has devoted her life to the cause of her husband, Vince, a courageous magistrate who had been blacklisted for political reasons before the war. Iza, their daughter, is as brave and conscientious as her father: Active in the resistance against the Nazis, she is now a doctor and a force for progress. Iza lives and works in Budapest, and when Vince dies, she is quick to bring Ettie to the city to make sure her mother is close and can be cared for. She means to do everything right, and Ettie is eager to do everything to the satisfaction of the daughter she is so proud of. But good intentions aside, mother and daughter come from two different worlds and have different ideas of what it means to lead a good life. Though they struggle to accommodate each other, increasingly they misunderstand and hurt each other, and the distance between them widens into an abyss. . . .\"'The Door' has a vitality undimmed by time or translation. Its emotional ferocity, moral urgency and tincture of black magic made it feel new and urgent. 'Iza’s Ballad’ is no less relevant, a trenchant, unadulterated drama of old age and the loss of meaning…George Szirtes’s translation captures the story’s emotional turmoil at no cost to its clarity or directness. Even after years of obscurity, this novel has the breath and pulse of a living thing.\" —Sam Sacks, \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Some books, like some people, require great patience and attention to fully understand their complexity and beauty. Szabo teaches us lucky readers this very lesson through \u003ci\u003eIza’s Ballad\u003c\/i\u003e, one that perfect but songless Iza could never learn.” —Lauren Groff\u003ci\u003e, The New York Times \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"New York Review of Books Classics did English-speaking readers an enormous  service when it published Hungarian writer Magda Szabo's tense and  rending 'The Door' in 2015, and it has us another with this fall's  release of her elegiac and elemental novel, 'Iza's Ballad.\u003ci\u003e'...\u003c\/i\u003eSzabo deftly explores not only the complications of life under communism  in the mid-20th century, but also the idiosyncratic and individual  failures of empathy that infiltrate human life no matter the time or  place. She exposes how, in spite of ourselves, we often espouse and  admire the noblest ideals even as we hurt and neglect the people who  should be closest to us.\u003ci\u003e..\u003c\/i\u003eHermann Hesse, one of Szabo's mentors, once said of her, 'With Frau  Szabo, you have caught a golden fish. Buy all of her novels, the ones  she is writing and the ones she will write.' With 'Iza's Ballad'  available in English, readers here in the States have — and should not  miss — an additional chance to bask in Szabo's gold.\u003ci\u003e\" \u003c\/i\u003e—Kathleen Rooney,\u003ci\u003e The Chicago Tribune\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This rich novel is a startling reminder that it is possible to speak  regularly, and with good intentions, to family members without ever  coming an inch closer to understanding one another.\u003ci\u003e\" \u003c\/i\u003e—Priyanka Kumar, \u003ci\u003eSanta Fe New Mexican\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“[A] compelling, affecting and a fascinating parable of mid-20th century progress… a study of the spaces between people, and what those represent.” —Pasha Malla, \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Globe and Mail \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A] heartbreakingly beautiful novel...Szirtes conveys both the   sophistication and simplicity of Szabó’s narrative in a superb   translation......Just as \u003ci\u003eThe Door \u003c\/i\u003ewon an immediate English-language following, \u003ci\u003eIza’s Ballad \u003c\/i\u003eis bound to become one of the most loved books of the year.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Irish Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Magda Szabo's work casts an indirect light upon the dimness that exists between our public and private selves, a place wherein our betrayals—both personal and political—flicker uneasily over the walls...\u003ci\u003eIza's Ballad\u003c\/i\u003e should solidify Szabo's standing as a master novelist amongst her English-language readers.\" —Dustin Ilingworth, \u003ci\u003eLitHub\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“A ruthless exploration of the damage we inflict on one another in the name of love.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Independent\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Ghosts, angels, and demons hover in this quiet meditation on grief, love, and history.\" —\u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “The writing has a lovely clarity and a relevance that is timeless.” —Kate Saunders, \u003ci\u003eThe Times \u003c\/i\u003e(London)\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Szabó nails with incisive clarity the painful dynamics between the two  [central] characters...A perceptive study of family relationships,  bereavement and old age, it is harrowingly beautiful.” —Juanita Coulson,  \u003ci\u003eThe Lady\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eMagda Szabó\u003c\/b\u003e (1917–2007) was born into an old Protestant family in Debrecen,  Hungary’s “Calvinist Rome,” in the midst of the great Hungarian plain.  Szabó, whose father taught her to converse with him in Latin, German,  English, and French, attended the University of Debrecen, studying Latin  and Hungarian, and went on to work as a teacher throughout the German  and Soviet occupations of Hungary in 1944 and 1945. In 1947, she  published two volumes of poetry, \u003ci\u003eBárány\u003c\/i\u003e (The Lamb), and \u003ci\u003eVissza az emberig\u003c\/i\u003e (Return to Man), for which she received the Baumgartner Prize in 1949.  Under Communist rule, this early critical success became a liability,  and Szabó turned to writing fiction: Her first novel, \u003ci\u003eFreskó\u003c\/i\u003e (Fresco), came out in 1958, followed closely by \u003ci\u003eAz őz \u003c\/i\u003e(\u003ci\u003eThe Fawn\u003c\/i\u003e). In 1959 she won the József Attila Prize, after which she went on to write many more novels, among them \u003ci\u003eKatalin utca \u003c\/i\u003e(Katalin Street, 1969), \u003ci\u003eÓkút \u003c\/i\u003e(The Ancient Well, 1970), \u003ci\u003eRégimódi történet\u003c\/i\u003e (An Old-Fashioned Tale, 1971), and \u003ci\u003eAz ajtó \u003c\/i\u003e(\u003ci\u003eThe Door\u003c\/i\u003e, 1987). In 2015, the first American publication of \u003ci\u003eThe Door\u003c\/i\u003e was named one of ten best books of the year by \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e.  Szabó also wrote verse for children, plays, short stories, and  nonfiction, including a tribute to her husband, Tibor Szobotka, a writer  and translator who died in 1982. A member of the European Academy of  Sciences and a warden of the Calvinist Theological Seminary in Debrecen,  Szabó died in the town in which she was born, a book in her hand. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eGeorge Szirtes\u003c\/b\u003e is a poet and translator of Hungarian literature. He is the author of the poetry collections \u003ci\u003eThe Slant Door\u003c\/i\u003e (winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize), \u003ci\u003eBridge Passages\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eReel \u003c\/i\u003e(winner  of the T.S. Eliot Prize). He is a recipient of the 2013 Best Translated  Book Award for his translation of László Krasznahorkai’s \u003ci\u003eSatantango\u003c\/i\u003e and was one of two translators who received prizes when Krasznahorkai won the 2015 Man Booker International Prize. Szirtes’s \u003ci\u003eNew\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eand Collected Poems \u003c\/i\u003ewas published in 2008.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44862644846821,"sku":"NP9781681370347","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781681370347.jpg?v=1767730292","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/izas-ballad-isbn-9781681370347","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}