Strangers in Budapest

Strangers in Budapest

Author: Jessica Keener

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Published: 2017-11-14

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 161620768X

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“Jessica Keener has written a gorgeous, lyrical, and sweeping novel about the tangled web of past and present. Suspenseful, perceptive, fast-paced, and ultimately restorative.” —Susan Henderson, author of Up from the Blue Budapest: gorgeous city of secrets, with ties to a shadowy, bloody past. It is to this enigmatic European capital that a young American couple, Annie and Will, move from Boston with their infant son shortly after the fall of the Communist regime. For Annie, it is an effort to escape the ghosts that haunt her past, and Will wants simply to seize the chance to build a new future for his family. Eight months after their move, their efforts to assimilate are thrown into turmoil when they receive a message from friends in the US asking that they check up on an elderly man, a fiercely independent Jewish American WWII veteran who helped free Hungarian Jews from a Nazi prison camp. They soon learn that the man, Edward Weiss, has come to Hungary to exact revenge on someone he is convinced seduced, married, and then murdered his daughter. Annie, unable to resist anyone’s call for help, recklessly joins in the old man’s plan to track down his former son-in-law and confront him, while Will, pragmatic and cautious by nature, insists they have nothing to do with Weiss and his vendetta. What Annie does not anticipate is that in helping Edward she will become enmeshed in a dark and deadly conflict that will end in tragedy and a stunning loss of innocence. Atmospheric and surprising, Strangers in Budapest is, as bestselling novelist Caroline Leavitt says, a “dazzlingly original tale about home, loss, and the persistence of love.”


Strangers in Budapest

Strangers in Budapest

Author: Jessica Keener

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Published: 2017-11-14

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1616204974

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“Jessica Keener has written a gorgeous, lyrical, and sweeping novel about the tangled web of past and present. Suspenseful, perceptive, fast-paced, and ultimately restorative.” —Susan Henderson, author of Up from the Blue Budapest: gorgeous city of secrets, with ties to a shadowy, bloody past. It is to this enigmatic European capital that a young American couple, Annie and Will, move from Boston with their infant son shortly after the fall of the Communist regime. For Annie, it is an effort to escape the ghosts that haunt her past, and Will wants simply to seize the chance to build a new future for his family. Eight months after their move, their efforts to assimilate are thrown into turmoil when they receive a message from friends in the US asking that they check up on an elderly man, a fiercely independent Jewish American WWII veteran who helped free Hungarian Jews from a Nazi prison camp. They soon learn that the man, Edward Weiss, has come to Hungary to exact revenge on someone he is convinced seduced, married, and then murdered his daughter. Annie, unable to resist anyone’s call for help, recklessly joins in the old man’s plan to track down his former son-in-law and confront him, while Will, pragmatic and cautious by nature, insists they have nothing to do with Weiss and his vendetta. What Annie does not anticipate is that in helping Edward she will become enmeshed in a dark and deadly conflict that will end in tragedy and a stunning loss of innocence. Atmospheric and surprising, Strangers in Budapest is, as bestselling novelist Caroline Leavitt says, a “dazzlingly original tale about home, loss, and the persistence of love.”


The Invisible Bridge

The Invisible Bridge

Author: Julie Orringer

Publisher: Knopf

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 625

ISBN-13: 1400041163

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A historical novel set in 1937 Europe tells the story of three Hungarian Jewish brothers bound by history and love, of a marriage tested by disaster, of a Jewish family's struggle against annihilation by the Nazis and of the dangerous power of art in the time of war.


Budapest's Children

Budapest's Children

Author: Friederike Kind-Kovács

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2022-07-05

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 0253062187

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In the aftermath of World War I, international organizations descended upon the destitute children living in the rubble of Budapest and the city became a testing ground for how the West would handle the most vulnerable residents of a former enemy state. Budapest's Children reconstructs how Budapest turned into a laboratory of transnational humanitarian intervention. Friederike Kind-Kovács explores the ways in which migration, hunger, and destitution affected children's lives, casting light on children's particular vulnerability in times of distress. Drawing on extensive archival research, Kind-Kovács reveals how Budapest's children, as iconic victims of the war's aftermath, were used to mobilize humanitarian sentiments and practices throughout Europe and the United States. With this research, Budapest's Children investigates the dynamic interplay between local Hungarian organizations, international humanitarian donors, and the child relief recipients. In tracing transnational relief encounters, Budapest's Children reveals how intertwined postwar internationalism and nationalism were and how child relief reinforced revisionist claims and global inequalities that still reverberate today.


Love and Treasure

Love and Treasure

Author: Ayelet Waldman

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2014-04-01

Total Pages: 398

ISBN-13: 0385533551

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A spellbinding new novel of contraband masterpieces, tragic love, and the unexpected legacies of forgotten crimes, Ayelet Waldman’s Love and Treasure weaves a tale around the fascinating, true history of the Hungarian Gold Train in the Second World War. In 1945 on the outskirts of Salzburg, victorious American soldiers capture a train filled with unspeakable riches: piles of fine gold watches; mountains of fur coats; crates filled with wedding rings, silver picture frames, family heirlooms, and Shabbat candlesticks passed down through generations. Jack Wiseman, a tough, smart New York Jew, is the lieutenant charged with guarding this treasure—a responsibility that grows more complicated when he meets Ilona, a fierce, beautiful Hungarian who has lost everything in the ravages of the Holocaust. Seventy years later, amid the shadowy world of art dealers who profit off the sins of previous generations, Jack gives a necklace to his granddaughter, Natalie Stein, and charges her with searching for an unknown woman—a woman whose portrait and fate come to haunt Natalie, a woman whose secret may help Natalie to understand the guilt her grandfather will take to his grave and to find a way out of the mess she has made of her own life. A story of brilliantly drawn characters—a suave and shady art historian, a delusive and infatuated Freudian, a family of singing circus dwarfs fallen into the clutches of Josef Mengele, and desperate lovers facing choices that will tear them apart—Love and Treasure is Ayelet Waldman’s finest novel to date: a sad, funny, richly detailed work that poses hard questions about the value of precious things in a time when life itself has no value, and about the slenderest of chains that can bind us to the griefs and passions of the past. This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.


Swimming Across

Swimming Across

Author: Andrew Grove

Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press

Published: 2019-08-09

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13:

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Elegant and concise, this childhood memoir of Andy Grove, one of the pioneers of Silicon Valley, begins in Budapest, Hungary where the author was born into a secular Jewish family in 1936. As a small child, Andris Grof was told, “Jesus Christ was killed by the Jews, and because of that, all of the Jews will be thrown into the Danube.” Grof’s school years were marked by such anti-semitism and interrupted first by the Nazi occupation and then by the post-war Communist regime. He was a good student who excelled at chemistry which he was studying at the University of Budapest when the Hungarian uprising of 1956 persuaded him to “swim across” the border and emigrate to the West. Grove provides an interesting sketch of a boy’s coming of age in a deeply dangerous 20th century Budapest under the control of Nazis and then Communists and concludes the memoir with an account of his escape and eventual resumption of his studies at the City College of New York. “Haunting and inspirational. It should be required reading in schools.” — Tom Brokaw “A poignant memoir... a moving reminder of the meaning of America and the grit and courage of a remarkable young man who became one of America’s phenomenal success stories.” — Henry Kissinger “This honest and riveting account gives a fascinating insight into the man who wroteOnly the Paranoid Survive.” — George Soros “Andy Grove is a tremendous role model, and his book sheds light on his amazing journey. I would choose him as my doubles partner any day!” — Monica Seles “Combines a unique and often harrowing personal experience with the virtues of fiction at its most engrossing — vivid scenes, sharply delineated characters, and an utterly compelling narrative... a wonderful reading experience.” — Richard North Patterson “A poignant tale leading to human courage and hope.” — Elie Wiesel “Grove, the founder and chairman of Intel Corporation, does not whine about his hardships. Instead he recalls ordinary events and matter-of-factly juxtaposes these against the turmoil of midcentury Hungary, creating a subtle though compelling commentary on the power to endure.” — Diane Scharper, The New York Times “Swimming Across tells the childhood stories [Grove] has guarded since first entering the public eye four decades ago... [It] is driven not by executives battling for money and power, but the experiences — some mundane, some extraordinary — of a nonobservant Jewish boy growing up in Hungary through a fascist regime, a Nazi invasion and a Soviet occupation.” — Chris Gaither, The New York Times “ The intelligence, dedication and ingenuity that earned him fame and fortune (he wasTime’s Man of the Year in 1997) are evident early on... Grove’s story stands smartly amid inspirational literature by self-made Americans” — Publishers Weekly “A tight, simply told, extremely intimate memoir... a polished, solid portrait of a particular time and place.” — Kirkus “[A] moving and inspiring memoir... Grove’s account of life in Hungary in the 1950s is a vivid picture of a tumultuous period in world history.” — Booklist


Siege 13

Siege 13

Author: Tamas Dobozy

Publisher: Dundurn.com

Published: 2012-09-15

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 1771022639

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2012 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize — Winner 2012 Governor General’s Literary Award — Finalist, English-Language Fiction In December of 1944, the Red Army entered Budapest to begin one of the bloodiest sieges of the Second World War. By February, the siege was over, but its effects were to be felt for decades afterward. Siege 13 is a collection of thirteen linked stories about this terrible time in history, both its historical moment, but also later, as a legacy of silence, haunting, and trauma that shadows the survivors. Set in both Budapest before and after the siege, and in the present day – in Canada, the U.S., and parts of Europe – Siege 13 traces the ripple effect of this time on characters directly involved, and on their friends, associates, sons, daughters, grandchildren, and adoptive countries. Written by one of this country’s best and most internationally recognized short story authors – the story "The Restoration of the Villa Where Tibor Kallman Once Lived" won the 2011 O. Henry Prize for short fiction – Siege 13 is an intelligent, emotional, and absorbing cycle of stories about war, family, loyalty, love and redemption.


Budapest and New York

Budapest and New York

Author: Thomas Bender

Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation

Published: 1994-01-13

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 9781610440400

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Little over a century ago, New York and Budapest were both flourishing cities engaging in spectacular modernization. By 1930, New York had emerged as an innovating cosmopolitan metropolis, while Budapest languished under the conditions that would foster fascism. Budapest and New York explores the increasingly divergent trajectories of these once-similar cities through the perspectives of both Hungarian and American experts in the fields of political, cultural, social and art history. Their original essays illuminate key aspects of urban life that most reveal the turn-of-the-century evolution of New York and Budapest: democratic participation, use of public space, neighborhood ethnicity, and culture high and low. What comes across most strikingly in these essays is New York's cultivation of social and political pluralism, a trend not found in Budapest. Nationalist ideology exerted tremendous pressure on Budapest's ethnic groups to assimilate to a single Hungarian language and culture. In contrast, New York's ethnic diversity was transmitted through a mass culture that celebrated ethnicity while muting distinct ethnic traditions, making them accessible to a national audience. While Budapest succumbed to the patriotic imperatives of a nation threatened by war, revolution, and fascism, New York, free from such pressures, embraced the variety of its people and transformed its urban ethos into a paradigm for America. Budapest and New York is the lively story of the making of metropolitan culture in Europe and America, and of the influential relationship between city and nation. In unifying essays, the editors observe comparisons not only between the cities, but in the scholarly outlooks and methodologies of Hungarian and American histories. This volume is a unique urban history. Begun under the unfavorable conditions of a divided world, it represents a breakthrough in cross-cultural, transnational, and interdisciplinary historical work.


Katalin Street

Katalin Street

Author: Magda Szabo

Publisher: New York Review of Books

Published: 2017-09-12

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1681371537

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FINALIST FOR THE 2017 PEN TRANSLATION PRIZE From the author of The Door, selected as one of the New York Times "10 Best Books of 2015," this is a heartwrenching tale about a group of friends and lovers torn apart by the German occupation of Budapest during World War II. In prewar Budapest three families live side by side on gracious Katalin Street, their lives closely intertwined. A game is played by the four children in which Bálint, the promising son of the Major, invariably chooses Irén Elekes, the headmaster’s dutiful elder daughter, over her younger sister, the scatterbrained Blanka, and little Henriette Held, the daughter of the Jewish dentist. Their lives are torn apart in 1944 by the German occupation, which only the Elekes family survives intact. The postwar regime relocates them to a cramped Soviet-style apartment and they struggle to come to terms with social and political change, personal loss, and unstated feelings of guilt over the deportation of the Held parents and the death of little Henriette, who had been left in their protection. But the girl survives in a miasmal afterlife, and reappears at key moments as a mute witness to the inescapable power of past events. As in The Door and Iza’s Ballad, Magda Szabó conducts a clear-eyed investigation into the ways in which we inflict suffering on those we love. Katalin Street, which won the 2007 Prix Cévennes for Best European novel, is a poignant, somber, at times harrowing book, but beautifully conceived and truly unforgettable.


Strangers in the Land of Paradise

Strangers in the Land of Paradise

Author: Lillian Serece Williams

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2000-07-22

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 9780253214089

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Now in paperback! Strangers in the Land of Paradise The Creation of an African American Community, Buffalo, NY, 1900–1940 Lillian Serece Williams Examines the settlement of African Americans in Buffalo during the Great Migration. "A splendid contribution to the fields of African-American and American urban, social and family history. . . . expanding the tradition that is now well underway of refuting the pathological emphasis of the prevailing ghetto studies of the 1960s and '70s." —Joe W. Trotter Strangers in the Land of Paradise discusses the creation of an African American community as a distinct cultural entity. It describes values and institutions that Black migrants from the South brought with them, as well as those that evolved as a result of their interaction with Blacks native to the city and the city itself. Through an examination of work, family, community organizations, and political actions, Lillian Williams explores the process by which the migrants adapted to their new environment. The lives of African Americans in Buffalo from 1900 to 1940 reveal much about race, class, and gender in the development of urban communities. Black migrant workers transformed the landscape by their mere presence, but for the most part they could not rise beyond the lowest entry-level positions. For African American women, the occupational structure was even more restricted; eventually, however, both men and women increased their earning power, and that—over time—improved life for both them and their loved ones. Lillian Serece Williams is Associate Professor of History in the Women's Studies Department and Director of the Institute for Research on Women at Albany, the State University of New York. She is editor of Records of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, 1895–1992, associate editor of Black Women in United States History, and author of A Bridge to the Future: The History of Diversity in Girl Scouting. 352 pages, 14 b&w illus., 15 maps, notes, bibl., index, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 Blacks in the Diaspora—Darlene Clark Hine, John McCluskey, Jr., and David Barry Gaspar, general editors