Lazar

רומן משפחתי־היסטורי־גותי על קורותיה של משפחה אריסטוקרטית בהונגריה – מתחילת המאה העשרים ועד למרד הלאומי ההונגרי של 1956 – המתמודדת עם דעיכתה על רקע תהפוכות המאה העשרים. Lázár מסעיר את עולם הספרות בין השאר משום שמחבר האפוס ההיסטורי השאפתני, הסופר השווייצרי נליו בידרמן, השלים את כתיבתו לפני שמלאו לו 22.

The Lázárs have ruled their Hungarian lands for generations. In their ancient castle by the edge of a forest that compels all who enter it to madness, they succumb to every vice and live only to satiate their desires. But the old order is crumbling, and the days of the Habsburg Monarchy are numbered. When Lajos von Lázár inherits, they at last have a baron who can reignite the old splendours, but not even his abilities are proof against the ravages of war and occupation. It will fall to his children – a boy who talks to shadows and a girl who eschews her blue blood – to find a way to stand against oppression and take the first faltering steps towards freedom.

A sweeping epic, taking the reader from the beginning of the twentieth century to the Hungarian National Uprising of 1956, Lázár would be a phenomenal achievement for a writer of any age. With its air of timeless wisdom, it reads like rediscovered classic, making it all the more remarkable that it was written when the author, Nelio Biedermann, was just twenty-one years old. 
Translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch