Zahár Zsófia (szerk.): Encounters. A Hungarian Quarterly Reader (Budapest, 1999)
ENCOUNTERS A Hungarian Quarterly Reader Encounters presents a selection of outstanding recent contributions to The Hungarian Quarterly by major figures of contemporary Hungarian letters as well as distinguished foreign authors. The short stories, poems and essays survey the crucial junctures of twentieth-century Hungarian experience, from the Central European heritage of the Habsburg Empire to the recent transition to a market economy. The reader will learn about the Danube as an ironic emblem for the absence of a definite identity; about the love triangle involving Emperor Francis Joseph, the intractable Hungarians and the Empress Elisabeth; the number of individuals to whom thanks are due for one Hungarian Jew's survival in 1944 (hint: they include the composer of the Blue Danube Waltz); the Orwellian minutiae of the most notorious show trial of the Stalinist era; the irrelevance of common sense when the hungry queue up for bread during the 1956 Revolution; the conflict of values between peasants and Gypsies; the vicissitudes of a Hungarian writer in London, penniless on the wrong train; the eclectic dress code of the nouveaux riches of the nineties. Acute perceptions, quirky gestures and melancholy sensibilities respond here to the drastic realities of history. Aspects of Hungarian life, harrowing and hilarious in turn, appear through the lens of outsiders, while the world at large is viewed in the light of experiences peculiar to the region. The reader of Encounters is invited to form a more vivid and more differentiated picture of a unique culture at the turbulent crossroads of Europe. ZSÓFIA ZACHÁR joined The New Hungarian Quarterly as its Music Editor in 1983 and has been Deputy Editor of the journal since 1990. Authors she has translated include Thackeray, Ambrose Bierce, Katherine Anne Porter and Susan Sontag.