The Storyteller: Memory, Secrets, Magic and Lies - Rilegato

Porter, Anna

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0385259565 ISBN 13: 9780385259569

Casa editrice: Doubleday, 2000

Riassunto

On long walks through the once-grand European capital of Budapest, set on the banks of the Danube, in confidences whispered in splendid fin-de-sičcle coffee houses, Vili Racz shared his wisdom and his stories with his granddaughter Anna. Some of his stories were as old as the Carpathian basin and some still held the sting of recent war and hardship. Some were fanciful works of imagination. His tales encompassed the arrival of the Huns and later the Magyars in Europe. He told her of the Turkish wars, of the rise and fall of the House of Hapsburg, and of two devastating world wars. He continued telling her stories through the advent of the Communist era, the 1956 Revolution in Hungary, and the great migration that followed.

One day, Anna would have her own stories to tell. She was born during World War II, as bombs rained down on Budapest and a group of Jews hid in the basement of the family house. As Anna grows up in the beautiful but beleaguered city, her grandfather's stories of heroes and strife and survival give her a personal sense of history and of knowing what's right in a country the world seems to have forgotten.
The Storyteller is also a vivid and textured saga of the whole Rįcz family. There is prejudice and pride, grief and frivolity, violence and glitter, loves, loyalties and betrayals in the tumultuous years from the Second World War to the 1956 revolution and the family's exile to New Zealand. During this time, young Anna briefly goes to prison with her mother, sees her beloved grandfather sentenced to hard labour by the Communists, and witnesses unspeakable human loss in the streets of Budapest at the height of the revolution in 1956. But always at the heart of this engrossing memoir are the amazing stories of her amazing grandfather.

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Recensione

"All of his stories took many tellings, but the first time is the one I always remember the best." —Anna Porter

"Among the numerous memoirs of Central and Eastern Europe refugees, whether political or literary or both, The Storyteller stands out because of the unusual sensitivity of its author, as well as because of the often brilliant portraiture of a family and of her grandfather, who incarnated a now entirely vanished world." —John Lukacs, author of Five Days in London

"Enchanting! With a fabulous blend of memory, myth, and mystery, of melancholy, comedy, and irony, Anna Porter conjures up moments of magic. The past comes alive in the only way it should, as suggestion rather than as truth." —Modris Eksteins, author of Walking Since Daybreak

"Anna Porter has written a magical book, worthy of her legendary raconteur and duellist grandfather, Vili Racz. Something of a Hungarian Cyrano do Bergerac, Vili Racz could do it both with his words and his sword. His granddaughter does it with words alone." —George Jonas, author of Final Decree

“But The Storyteller speaks eloquently of the uses — and misuses — of history and the power of narrative. So deep is the appeal of the stories she absorbed as a child that at the end of the book we see Porter, in 1998, going back to those lands of her ancestors, now in Romania and Yugoslavia, sharing memories with her mother, passing on memories to one of her daughters. Vili would be proud.” —The National Post

“The Storyteller represents a much higher level of literary accomplishment, a worthy addition to the growing literature of displacement, and a poignant reminder that the best history is not always written by the winners.” —The Toronto Star

“...Porter manages a difficult feat — she conveys the heartbreaking innocence of childhood with an overlay of the knowledge and humour of the person she is today.” —The Globe and Mail

“The Storyteller shows that great storytellers are both born and made. Like grandfather, like granddaughter.” —Chatelaine

L'autore

Anna Porter was born in Hungary. Her family settled in New Zealand after the 1956 Revolution. She began her publishing career in England, then moved to Canada in 1969. Anna Porter is publisher of Key Porter Books, and is one of Canada's most respected publishing professionals. She has lectured and given speeches about culture and publishing throughout Canada. She is the author of three crime novels, Hidden Agenda, Mortal Sins and The Bookfair Murders. An officer of the Order of Canada, Anna Porter lives in Toronto with her husband and two daughters.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Doubleday
• Data di pubblicazione: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0385259565
• ISBN 13: 9780385259569
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 324