Monthly Archive for April, 2010

From Garth Risk Hallberg at The Millions…

When I first encountered the work of Péter Esterházy, at the 2008 PEN World Voices festival, all I knew of him was his name. But what a name! The House of Esterházy, like an Eastern European amalgam of the Medicis and the Kennedys, was prominent in Austro-Hungarian culture and politics for centuries, until the upheavals of the 20th Century cost the family almost everything. It’s a cost Esterházy assesses in his magnum opus, Harmonia Caelestis (2000), from which he read that night, in his native tongue. “I don’t speak English,” he said. “You don’t speak Hungarian. This is the problem.” Nonetheless, he sent his audience rushing to the merch tables, where his books promptly sold out. More…