{"product_id":"the-door-isbn-9781590177716","title":"The Door","description":"\u003cb\u003eOne of \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e's \"10 Best Books of 2015\"\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn NYRB Classics Original \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Door\u003c\/i\u003e is an unsettling exploration of the relationship between two very different women. Magda is a writer, educated, married to an academic, public-spirited, with an on-again-off-again relationship to Hungary’s Communist authorities. Emerence is a peasant, illiterate, impassive, abrupt, seemingly ageless. She lives alone in a house that no one else may enter, not even her closest relatives. She is Magda’s housekeeper and she has taken control over Magda’s household, becoming indispensable to her. And Emerence, in her way, has come to depend on Magda. They share a kind of love—at least until Magda’s long-sought success as a writer leads to a devastating revelation. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLen Rix’s prizewinning translation of \u003ci\u003eThe Door\u003c\/i\u003e at last makes it possible for American readers to appreciate the masterwork of a major modern European writer.\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize and the Prix Femina Étranger\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I remember the feeling I had only a few pages in: that this was a voice unlike any I’d ever read—elevated, almost cold, but bristling with passion beneath the surface—and that the book was very, very good.” —Emily Temple, \u003ci\u003eLit Hub\u003c\/i\u003e’s '10 Best Translated Novels of the Decade' \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Beautifully translated by Len Rix . . . New York Review Books Classics—acting, yet again, in its capacity as the Savior of Lost Greats—has now delivered this version to an American audience. If you’ve felt that you’re reasonably familiar with the literary landscape, ‘The Door’ will prompt you to reconsider. It’s astonishing that this masterpiece should have been essentially unknown to English-language readers for so long . . . suffice it to say that I’ve been haunted by this novel. Szabo’s lines and images come to my mind unexpectedly, and with them powerful emotions. It has altered the way I understand my own life. [It is] a work of stringent honesty and delicate subtlety.” —Claire Messud, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"'The Door' is a deeply strange and equally affecting book, a dark domestic fairy tale about the relationship between a Hungarian writer, Magda, and her taciturn elderly housekeeper, Emerence.” —John Williams, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"'The Door,' by Magda Szabo, is a Hungarian novel with the elemental force of a myth—the story of a middle-class writer and the servant who takes over her household and her life. Class dynamics, female friendship, the power of will—Szabo writes about them all with eerie fascination.\" —Adam Kirsch, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Szabó is a master tension builder, and Emerence's demise . . . is heartbreakingly rendered.\" —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Szabo is a deft writer. She constructs the narrative around a deeply authentic friendship while leaving unresolved the main idea: How will you conduct yourself in your quest to be an authentic writer, and what are the costs to the people who care for you?” —Diane Mehta, \u003ci\u003eThe Rumpus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No brief summary can do justice to the intelligence and moral complexity of this novel. I picked it up without expectation. I read it with gathering intensity, and a swelling admiration. I finished it, and straightaway started to read it again. It is unusual, original, and utterly compelling.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Scotsman \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A superbly controlled and involving work of art. . . . One of Szabó’s triumphs is to have written a profound political novel that is rooted in the domestic.” —Liam McIlvanney, \u003ci\u003eLondon Review of Books \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Clever, moving, frightening, it deserves to be a bestseller.” —Tibor Fischer, \u003ci\u003eThe Telegraph \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Szabó’s style (the text is brilliantly translated), laced with gentle humor, is as mesmerizing as are her characters. Her dexterous, self-ironizing distance (the autobiographical elements are obvious), the detached gestures with which the narrator interrupts herself, the muted fury that erupts in overlong or half-sentences, and a certain moral seriousness and ethical anguish also impregnate this gem of a novel. Ultimately, the text is a tranquil memento, a piece of irrefutable poetry, a bizarre counterpart to our universal betrayal—out of love.” —\u003ci\u003eWorld Literature Today\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Door \u003c\/i\u003eis a valuable document of a vital relationship.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Door \u003c\/i\u003etells a great deal about the sufferings of 20th-century Hungary through the heart and mind of a single fearless woman, as Magda is taught by example to consider her own inadequacies. Magda Szabó’s great book was published in Hungary as long ago as 1987; Len Rix’s fluent translation is a belated and welcome gift to readers in English . . . profoundly moving.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Independent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Door \u003c\/i\u003eis a marvellous book dominated by female characters.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e (London)\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This melting pot of a novel hangs from a solid tripod of Greek myth, Biblical scripture and Slavic fairy tale, handled with style and an easy familiarity. There is a great deal here to move anyone who has watched or felt the sufferings of age.” —\u003ci\u003eGlasgow Herald \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Intimate and satisfying . . . . The tension between Magda and her housekeeper is fascinating, and sometimes sickening as well . . . . The story celebrates love, the kind that is too perfectly made to exist on Earth.” —Claire Rudy Foster,\u003ci\u003e \u003ci\u003eCleaver Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\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 oz\u003c\/i\u003e (The Fawn). 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\u003e Az ajtó\u003c\/i\u003e (The Door, 1987). Szabó also wrote verse for children, plays, short  stories, and nonfiction, including a tribute to her husband, Tibor  Szobotka, a writer and translator of Tolkien and Galsworthy who died in  1982. A member of the European Academy of Sciences and a warden of the  Calvinist Theological Seminary in Debrecen, Magda Szabó died in the town  in which she was born, a book in her hand. In 2017 NYRB Classics will  publish \u003ci\u003eIza’s Ballad\u003c\/i\u003e (1963).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLen Rix\u003c\/b\u003e is a poet, critic, and former literature professor who has translated five books by Antal Szerb, including the novel \u003ci\u003eJourney by Moonlight \u003c\/i\u003e(available as an NYRB Classic) and, most recently, the travel memoir \u003ci\u003eThe Third Tower\u003c\/i\u003e. In 2006 he was awarded the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize for his translation of \u003ci\u003eThe Door\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAli Smith\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Inverness, Scotland, in 1962 and lives in Cambridge. Her latest novel is \u003ci\u003eHow to Be Both\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300310896869,"sku":"NP9781590177716","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590177716.jpg?v=1767739060","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-door-isbn-9781590177716","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}