Hungarian Historical Fiction

Budapest, 1952. When Katalin and her father, Márton, are woken by the ringing of the doorbell in the dead of night, it can mean only one thing. The Secret Police have come to arrest him on charges of subversion. But Katalin knows her father is innocent. In a communist society where ordinary people live in fear of the dreaded Secret Police, suspicion and betrayal are rife. While Márton endures the injustice of being wrongly accused, Katalin must find out who among her friends and acquaintances she can truly trust.

The Radetzky March, Joseph Roth's classic saga of the privileged von Trotta family, encompasses the entire social fabric of the Austro-Hungarian Empire just before World War I. The author's greatest achievement, The Radetzky March is an unparalleled portrait of a civilization in decline, and as such a universal story for our times.

Abigail, the story of a headstrong teenager growing up during World War II, is the most beloved of Magda Szabo's books in her native Hungary. Gina is the only child of a general, a widower who has long been happy to spoil his bright and willful daughter. Gina is devastated when the general tells her that he must go away on a mission and that he will be sending her to boarding school in the country. She is even more aghast at the grim religious institution to which she soon finds herself consigned.

Lena's best friend, Allison, is in a panic. On a walk in the woods by her home, Allison discovers the body of her mail carrier, an argumentative man who recently had a falling out with Allison's husband. Lena quickly realizes Allison has nothing to worry about, as the murder weapon points to a different suspect altogether: Lena's embattled boyfriend, Sam West.

Against all odds, Katniss has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol - a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create. Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest she’s afraid she cannot stop.

It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the 10th annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to out charm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute. The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low.

The Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece of world literature, the searing record of four decades of terror and oppression, in one abridged volume (authorized by the author). Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was perhaps the most dramatic single event of the Cold War and a major turning point in history. Though it ended unsuccessfully, the spontaneous uprising of Hungarians against their country's Communist party and the Soviet occupation forces in the wake of Stalin's death demonstrated to the world at large the failure of Communism.

The definitive history of a powerful family dynasty who dominated Europe for centuries - from their rise to power to their eventual downfall.

Paris, 1937. Andras Lévi, a Hungarian-Jewish architecture student, arrives from Budapest with a scholarship, a single suitcase, and a mysterious letter he has promised to deliver to C. Morgenstern on the rue de Sévigné. As he falls into a complicated relationship with the letter’s recipient, he becomes privy to a secret history that will alter the course of his own life. Meanwhile, as his elder brother takes up medical studies in Modena and their younger brother leaves school for the stage, Europe’s unfolding tragedy sends each of their lives into terrifying uncertainty.

The Great Siege of Vienna is the centerpiece for historian Andrew Wheatcroft's richly drawn portrait of the centuries-long rivalry between the Ottoman and Habsburg empires for control of the European continent. A gripping work by a master historian, The Enemy at the Gate offers a timely examination of an epic clash of civilizations.

In the vein of Naomi Novik’s New York Times best seller Spinning Silver and Katherine Arden’s national best seller The Bear and the Nightingale, this unforgettable debut - inspired by Hungarian history and Jewish mythology - follows a young pagan woman with hidden powers and a one-eyed captain of the Woodsmen as they form an unlikely alliance to thwart a tyrant.

Sixteen-year-old Anna Arden is barred from society by a defect of blood. Though her family is part of the Luminate, powerful users of magic, she is Barren, unable to perform the simplest spells. Anna would do anything to belong. But her fate takes another course when, after inadvertently breaking her sister's debutante spell - an important chance for a highborn young woman to show her prowess with magic - Anna finds herself exiled to her family's once powerful but now crumbling native Hungary.

Cracow, 1893. Zofia Turbotyńska—professor’s wife and socialite—is bored at home, with little to do but plan a charity auction sponsored by the wealthy residents of a local nursing home and the nuns who work there. But when one of those residents is found dead, Zofia finds a calling: solving crimes. Ridiculed by the police, who have declared the deaths of natural cause, she starts her own murder investigation. With her husband blissfully unaware of her secret, Zofia remakes herself into Cracow’s greatest—or at the very least, most surprising—amateur detective.

It is 1888 and Hungarian-American accountant Sándor Temesváry travels from London to Hungary to hire gypsy riders and musicians for his employer Buffalo Bill Cody's new show. Sándor plans to attend the wedding of his cousin, Ilona Temesváry, who is being coerced into marrying a distant Transylvanian Count after the death of her father by her profligate brother, horse-breeder Baron Zóltán. Count Dráco Batthyány de Harkály has agreed to pay off the Baron's debts in exchange for her hand. Their journey to the Count's lands entangles them in a life or death pact with a clan of gypsies.

“An ingenious marriage of comedy and crime” (Olga Tokarczuk, Nobel Laureate): When amateur sleuth and cunning socialite Zofia Turbotyńska’s beloved maid goes missing, she dives deep into Cracow’s web of crime, with only her trusted cook for company.

"Az Ezüst-tó kincse" Karl May legendás vadnyugati hőseinek valóságos találkozóhelye. Benne randevút ad egymásnak a két legnagyobb fehér vadász, Old Firehand és Old Shatterhand. A kötet ármánykodó gonosza a hiú és kapzsi Cornel, aki a kegyetlen csavargók, a trampek bandájával újabb és újabb rablásokat, gyilkosságokat követ el, hajszolva az indiánok kincsét és a fehérek pénzét.

Lázár Ervin a kimeríthetetlen magyar mondakincs legszebb darabjait dolgozza fel. Az Attiláról, a honfoglaló és kalandozó magyarokról, a tatár és török elleni harcokról, Lehel kürtjéről, Szent Istvánról, Szent Lászlóról, Mátyás királyról és másokról szóló jól ismert történeteket nemcsak újrameséli, hanem varázslatos írói világának részévé teszi: művészetének derűs, groteszk elemeit, eltéveszthetetlen stílusát megőrizve, valósággal újraalkotja azokat.

Rózsa Sándor történetét már többen pennájuk hegyére tűzték, így például Arany, Tömörkény, Krúdy, Móricz, Móra. Bennük egyetlen közös van: egyik sem volt ott! Mármint senki nem látta közelről Rózsa Sándor működését. Most azonban egy koronatanú, Veszelka Imre, a legszöbb paraszt, Rózsa Sándor legkedvesebb cimborája meséli el, hogy valójában hogyan is estek meg a dolgok. Ha valaki, hát ő igen közelről látta az eseményeket, és most (1900-ban) a szegedi Páva vendéglő előtt elmondja az igazi, eddig eltitkolt, megdöbbentő sztorit.

Hatalmas történeti tudás és kiváló lélekismeret jellemzi Szerb Antal novelláit. Szerzőjük úgy elevenít meg történelmi alakokat, hogy közben mindig önmagáról és koráról vall: a látszólagos tárgyilagosság mögött mély személyesség húzódik meg. Értékeket őriz, hagyományokat folytat. Szemléleteket robbant, formákat újít. Mélyen benne a nemzeti és európai kultúrában.