Parallel Stories

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year

Parallel Stories is a novel of extraordinary scope and depth, a masterwork that traces the fate of myriad Europeans--Hungarians, Jews, Germans, Gypsies--across the treacherous years of the mid-twentieth century. Three unusual men are at the heart of the novel: Hans von Wolkenstein, whose German mother has ties to the fascist-Nazi collaboration of the 1940s; gost Lippay Lehr, whose influential father has served Hungary's different political regimes for decades; and Andr s Rott, who has his own dark record of mysterious activities abroad. N das weaves the social and political circumstances of their lives into a magnificent tapestry, aligning the uncanny parallels that link them across time and space.

Fifteen years in the writing, and four in the translating, Parallel Stories is P ter N das's masterpiece--a daring and momentous novel from one of the great writers of our time.

Péter Nádas was born in Budapest in 1942. Among his works translated into English are the novels A Book of Memories (FSG, 1997), The End of a Family Story (FSG, 1998), and Love (FSG, 2000); a collection of stories and essays, Fire and Knowledge (FSG, 2007); and two pieces of short fiction, A Lovely Tale of Photography and Péter Nádas: Own Death. He lives with his wife in Gombosszeg, Hungary.