Homage To The Eighth District

by Giorgio Pressburger, G. Moore (translator)

The vibrant Jewish quarter of Budapest provides the setting for these stories by Hungarian twins Giorgio and Nicola Pressburger. Holocaust survivors and refugees from Communism, the brothers settled in Italy after 1956; and both pursued successful careers in journalism. Nicola died in 1985 and Giorgio died in 2017, now recognised as a major modern Italian writer, always conscious of the echoes between the languages and cultures he absorbed from Hungary, Italy and European Judaism.

Homage to the Eighth District introduced the brothers into English, and their unusual composition for two pens has impressed readers across Europe and America for its high dignity and perfect artistic control. The style seems to issue from a single hand, the language seemingly raw and unadorned, yet deeply psychological with flashes of striking lyricism conveyed by Gerald Moore's fine translation.

"Bare narrative and bitter irony, but not without humour...Faced as we are with so much over-writing it is sobering to reflect on the Pressburgers' brevity, and to realize that humanity and the agony of oppression can be encompassed in a few well written pages." -- Times Literary Supplement


"History can be told in many ways, but the most memorable accounts often employ the techniques of fiction
to tell the truth... A beautiful collection of tales. Where others are angry, the Pressburgers are wise." -- The Village
Voice


"A clarity, tact and affection utterly devoid of nostalgic distortion." -- Independent on Sunday


"Opens a new and fascinating page in the grand passion of European Jewry..." -- Books of the Month

"In Homage to the Eighth District - published in Italy only after rejection by several publishers - there are beautiful
and harrowing stories of memorable characters like Ilona Weiss with her seven lovers or the disturbed Leuchtner,
among the filthy market stalls and mysteries of the Temple, peeling hovels with inhabitants 'bearing in their eyes
strange flashes of anxiety', all poised on the threshold of the huge historical tragedy of the Holocaust." -- Corriere
della Sera

"History, but full of the feeling of fable." -- El Pa�s


"A Hungarian rhapsody." -- Panorama


"A vibrant portrait of a people who retained their courage and individuality under German and communist siege.
Written in exile, the book is humourous and sad, nostalgic and proud, revealing a Hungary hitherto unknown."
-- Cardiff Western Mail

134 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Giorgio Pressburger– narratore, autore e regista teatrale, saggista – è nato a Budapest nel 1937. Si è rifugiato in Italia nel 1956, dopo l’invasione sovietica dell’Ungheria. Tra le sue opere: Storie dell’Ottavo Distretto (Marietti 1986, poi Einaudi) e L’elefante verde (Marietti 1988, poi Einaudi), scritti con il fratello Nicola; La legge degli spazi bianchi (Marietti 1989, poi Bur), La neve e la colpa (Einaudi 1998, Premio Viareggio), Nel regno oscuro (Bompiani 2008), Storia umana e inumana (Bompiani 2013). Per Marsilio ha pubblicato Racconti triestini (2015) e Don Ponzio Capodoglio (2017).

Reviews

[Maurizio Manco · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Ma non aspetto risposta ormai a niente [...]. Mi dico che l'universo invecchia e ci vorranno altri mondi, non questo, per ritrovare la gioia di quando ero bambino." (p. 27)

"Se oggi ancora me la cavo a tirare avanti è dovuto all'indifferenza dei tempi che accolgono ugualmente il debole e il forte, il buono e il cattivo, il giusto e l'ingiusto, per gettarli nel gorgo del proprio inarrestabile nulla." (p. 93)

[Kathryn Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really well written