Now in paperback, Satantango, the novel that inspired Béla Tarr's
classic film, is proof that the devil has all the good times. Set in an
isolated hamlet, the novel unfolds over the course of a few rain-soaked
days. Only a dozen inhabitants remain in the bleak village, rank with
the stench of failed schemes, betrayals, failure, infidelity, sudden
hopes, and aborted dreams. "Their world," in the words of the renowned
translator George Szirtes is "rough and ready, lost somewhere between
the cosmic and tragic, in one small insignificant corner of the cosmos.
Theirs is the dance of death." Into this world comes, it seems, a
messiah...