Kosztolanyi, Dezso. Anna Edes. New York. 1993. New Directions. 1st New Directions Edition. Very Good In Wrappers. Translated From The Hungarian By George Szirtes.Originally Published In England In 1947. 220 pages. Cover illustration by the translator George Szirtes. Design by Hermann Strohbach. Anna Edes is a dark and deeply moving naturalistic novel, a classic work of twentieth-century Hungarian literature. A skillful portrayal of the cruelty and emptiness of bourgeois life, it was first published in 1926 and enthusiastically received by the intellectual coffee-house society through which it circulated. The novel was later acknowledged by authors such as Thomas Mann as a model of language and form, and in turn established Derso Kosztolanyi as one of the most significant writers of Eastern European fiction. Anna is the hard-working and long-suffering heroine, the unhappy maid destroyed by her pitiless employers. Her tragic relationship with them is played out against the political turbulence in Budapest following the First World War. Yet her endurance and revenge are depicted with keen psychological as well as historical insight, becoming, in the words of the translator, ‘not merely an argument about social conditions but raised to genuine tragedy.’ Derso Kosztolanyi was born in 1885 and gained notoriety as a journalist in Budapest during the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. An integral member of the intellectual and literary circles of the period, he published his first collection of poems, Within Four Walls, to great acclaim in 1907 His writings have influenced generations of Hungarian writers ever since. He died of throat cancer in 1936. ‘[Kosztolanyi is] among those who today best express the spiritual and cultural life of Europe.’ — Thomas Mann ‘Kosztolanyi pulls out all the stylistic stops in a comprehensive attempt to write this period of his life out of his system, to redeem himself through sheer verve and style.’ - (London) Times Literary Supplement ‘The surreal images with which the novelist conveys Anna's elemental feelings of terror, misery and infrequent pleasure hang in the mind long after the book is finished.’ - Sunday Telegraph. keywords: Literature Translated Eastern Europe Hungary. inventory # 27636. 0811212556