The Doorl Magda Szabopublished on The second ocean, hits bookstores this week. Plot: Emerenc is a strict, aggressive, hardworking woman with a very good reputation, dedicated to serving the community and also kept quiet about her affairs. It is a force of nature. When Magda, a young Hungarian writer, hires her, she cannot imagine how important she will ultimately be to her. Over the course of twenty years of service, they have built a complex and deep relationship. But Emerenc hides secrets beneath his steady façade that will end up testing their friendship and changing their lives irrevocably.
Read an excerpt from The DoorBut Magda Szabo (Second Ocean).
Magda Szabó was born in 1917 and is considered one of the most important Hungarian voices of the twentieth century. In 1949 she was declared an “enemy of the people” and during the 1950s was ostracized by the Stalinist regime. After her rehabilitation, she won the Attila Joseph Prize twice (1959 and 1972) and the prestigious Hungarian Kossuth Literary Prize in 1978.
The Door It was published in Hungary in 1987 and in 2003 it was translated into French. In France, the book won the prestigious Femina Étranger Prize, and Europe discovered her enormous talent, a European voice. Szabo died in Budapest in 2007. In 2022, Second Periphery published his novel Abigail.
Second Periphery's editor, Mikkel Adam, tells us about the work and the author:
“The attraction of opposites is one of the universal laws best discovered by literature. Few novels such as The Doorby Magda Szabo, manages to express in such a precise way the violent outburst of emotions that this attraction causes.
The Door It brilliantly chronicles the friendship, love, and hate relationship between two women who couldn't be more different. Magda, the narrator, is a writer. It works with the mind. Emerenc, his opponent, is a busy woman. He works with the power of his mighty hands. Magda has an unwavering faith in the Christian faith. On the other hand, Emmernik denies this: his faith is reactionary, Telluric. Magda's life was marked by the turbulent political events that Hungary witnessed in the twentieth century. That of Emerenc, due to the uncontrollable designs of nature.
When Magda hires Emerenc to do household chores, she can't imagine how important this is to her. Over the course of twenty years of service, they have built a complex and deep relationship. Although to say that Magda hires Emerinck… “I don't wash anyone's dirty laundry,” says the old woman at the beginning of the novel. Perhaps we can say that Emerenc chose Magda. He chooses her not only to wash his clothes, but also to give him his most precious secrets, the ones he hides behind his door.
All these years, these two opposite poles have been dancing a dance of attraction and rejection. The relationship between these two women deepens, and they both ignore that fate is weaving their webs and tightening their ropes, until this fragile balance that brings them together is destroyed, which leads this unforgettable relationship between Magda and Emmerinck to a painful dilemma that has no solution. The last third of the novel is the one that you cannot put down, no matter how sweaty your hands get.
This is one of those novels that you always carry with you once you read it. Emerenc is a literary character who can be compared to Olive Kitteridge or Elena Ferrante's characters. It can also be compared to Agota Christoph's Claus and Lucas. In any case, it is one of those works that leave an imprint in the memory. The psychological complexity that arises between our two adversaries will keep you ruminating long after you close the book. Ultimately, it is a book that stimulates conversation.
The Door It is the second title we publish from Zaboo in Ocean II. The first was Abigail. The Door, originally published in 1987 in Hungary, won the 2003 Femina Étranger Prize in France. It was published in Catalan in 2005, but rereading it made us understand very quickly that it was necessary to translate the text again, according to the quality standards of our time. We are happy to return this novel to our libraries, this time in a Hungarian translation by Imola Nicolette Szabo and Jordi Jenny de Lassa. The Door “It is a classic European novel, and it is with this consideration and respect that we worked on it.”
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