Journey by Moonlight

(Paperback)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

A major modern classic: the turbulent story of a businessman torn between middle-class respectability and sensational bohemoia

'Antal Szerb is one of the great European writers' - Ali Smith

'A novel to love as well as admire, always playful and ironical, full of brilliant descriptions, bon mots and absurd situations' - The Guardian

Mihly and Erzsi are on honeymoon in Italy. Mihly has recently joined the respectable family firm in Budapest, but as his gaze passes over the mysterious back-alleys of Venice, memories of his bohemian past reawaken his old desire to wander.

When bride and groom become separated at a provincial train station, Mihly embarks on a chaotic and bizarre journey that leads him finally to Rome, where he must reckon with both his past and his future. In this intoxicating and satirical masterpiece, Szerb takes us deep into the conflicting desires of marriage and shows how adulthood can reverberate endlessly with the ache of youth.

Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe.

Reviews

'A writer of immense subtlety and generosity... Can literary mastery be this quiet-seeming, this hilarious, this kind Antal Szerb is one of the great European writers' - Ali Smith

'A novel to love as well as admire, always playful and ironical, full of brilliant descriptions, bon mots and absurd situations... it's a book utterly in love with life' - Kevin Crossley-Holland

'Just divine ... the kind of book that makes you imagine the author has had private access to your own soul' - Nicholas Lezard

'This radiantly funny and intelligent novel... shows its author to be one of the masters of twentieth-century fiction. Len Rix's loving translation of a book that might have remained lost to us deserves special praise' - Paul Bailey

'Journey by Moonlight is a burning book, a major book' - George Szirtes

Author Bio

Antal Szerb was born in Budapest in 1901. Though of Jewish descent, he was baptised at an early age and remained a lifelong Catholic. He rapidly established himself as a formidable scholar, through studies of Ibsen and Blake and histories of English, Hungarian and world literature. He was a prolific essayist and reviewer, ranging across all the major European languages. Debarred by successive Jewish laws from working in a university, he was subjected to increasing persecution, and finally murdered in a forced labour camp in 1945. Pushkin Press publishes his novels The Pendragon Legend, Oliver VII and his masterpiece Journey by Moonlight, as well as the historical study The Queen's Necklace and Love in a Bottle and Other Stories.

Translated by Len Rix