Prenn Drifting HB

Out Of Print... Jozsef Lengyel is now generally considered to be one of Hungary's greatest living writers, and Prenn Drifting is the first of his works to be published in English. Partially based on the author's own experiences, this novel vividly brings to life Budapest during the First World War and the Communist Revolt of 1919. Prenn is a young desertertough, worldly-wise, but purposelesslounging around the Budapest cafs. He is bribed into becoming a spy, and sent to Vienna where he unwittingly falls in love with an Austrian aristocrat. When he attempts defection he is arrested and sentenced to death. His subsequent development into self-awareness, when he escapes to join the Revolution and later to fight at the Front, and his final reversion to a petty racketeer once more drifting about the city, is drawn with sharp precision and recounted with a racy objectivity. Prenn Drifting not only demonstrates Lengyel's mastery of style and characterization, but also offers an authentic historical reconstruction of a chaotic and demoralized era. 'A writer whose present stature is impressive and remarkable" TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT Translated from the Hungarian by Ilona Duczyska