"The Dispossessed is a great sui generis book that, for all its
cultural differences, touches us deeply. We recognize it as tragic,
truthful and visionary wherever we are." -- George Szirtes, New
York Times Book Review
This hypnotic, hauntingly beautiful first novel from the acclaimed,
award-winning poet and author Szilárd Borbély depicts the poverty and
cruelty experienced by a partly Jewish family in a rural village in the
late 1960s and early 1970s.
In a tiny village in northeast Hungary, close to the Romanian border, a
young, unnamed boy warily observes day-to-day life and chronicles his
family's struggles to survive. Like most of the villagers, his family is
desperately poor, but their situation is worse than most--they are
ostracized because of his father's Jewish heritage and his mother's
connections to the Kulaks, who once owned land and supported the fascist
Horthy regime before it was toppled by Communists.
With unflinching candor, the little boy's observations are related
through a variety of narrative voices--crude diatribes from his
alcoholic father, evocative and lyrical tales of the past from his
grandparents, and his own simple yet potent prose. Together, these
accounts reveal not only the history of his family but that of Hungary
itself, through the physical and psychic traumas of two World Wars to
the country's treatment of Jews, both past and present.
Drawing heavily on Borbély's memories of his own childhood, The
Dispossessed is an extraordinarily realistic novel. Raw and often
brutal, yet glimmering with hope, it is the crowning achievement of an
uncompromising talent.
