Premiers - 2021/2022

Ivan Nikolaevich “Homeless” is taken to a mental asylum in Moscow in his underwear, wearing a cross round his neck. He is totally confused. He explains to his doctor that by Patriarshye Prudy, he met the Devil who had something to do with the beheading of his friend Berlioz, editor of a literary magazine and a staunch atheist. But none of the doctors and nurses believes him.

Magda Szabó is the best known modern Hungarian writer worldwide. Her books have been translated into 43 languages. In the words of Európa Publishing House, the curators of Szabó’s oeuvre, “you cannot think of an author who is more Hungarian and European at the same time”.

Tom: Perhaps I am walking along a street at night, in some strange city, before I have found companions. I pass the lighted window of a shop where perfume is sold. The window is filled with pieces of coloured glass, tiny transparent bottles in delicate colours, like bits of a shattered rainbow...

“I am the accused! It is I who will solve the mystery!”

“His was the light which lit these eyes of mine; / yet let them grieve; those who see wrong, weep long.”

“What people thought would happen never did. / What they did not expect, the gods made happen.”