The Enchanted Night: Selected Tales

by Miklós Bánffy, Len Rix (Translator)

Transporting stories of intrigue, superstition and rivalry from a European master, in English for the first time

In this stark, haunting collection, Miklós Bánffy narrates with wry wisdom stories of cunning, betrayal and myth ranging from classical antiquity to the Transylvania of his own day. These are communities of sharp rivalries and religious superstition: young Borbálka, about to marry an unsuitable man, receives strange counsel from a suspicious figure in her village; four men seek to exploit the captive Gavrila Lung for money, while mountain wolves howl in the distance; when Old Damaskin betrays his stepson to hold on to his land, his wife extracts bizarre revenge.

Translated into English for the first time by the award-winning Len Rix, this collection further establishes Bánffy as one of the foremost European writers of the twentieth century.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Hungary, Hungarian Literature

257 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Count Miklós Bánffy de Losoncz was a Hungarian nobleman, politician, and novelist. His books include The Transylvanian Trilogy (They Were Counted, They Were Found Wanting, They Were Divided), and The Phoenix Land.

The Bánffy family emerged in 15th century Transylvania and established itself among the foremost dynasties of the country. They owned a grand palace in Kolozsvár (Romanian: Cluj-Napoca, German: Klausenburg), one of the main cities of Transylvania and one of the province's largest castles at Bonchida. One branch was raised to a barony in the 1660s, while another became counts in 1855. The barons produced a 19th-century prime minister of Hungary (Dezső Bánffy), and the counts held important offices at court. Among the latter was Count Miklós, born in Kolozsvár on December 30, 1873.

Beginning his political career at the time when Hungary was a constituent of Austria-Hungary, Bánffy was elected a Member of Parliament in 1901 and became Director of the Hungarian State Theatres (1913–1918). Both a traditionalist and a member of the avant-garde, he wrote five plays, two books of short stories, and a distinguished novel. Overcoming fierce opposition, his intervention made it possible for Béla Bartók's works to have their first performance in Budapest.

Bánffy became Foreign Minister of Hungary in his cousin Count István Bethlen's government of 1921. Although he detested the politics of the Regent, Admiral Miklós Horthy, he worked to review the boundary revisions confirmed by the Treaty of Trianon after World War I through which Transylvania had been transferred to Romania. Little progress was made, and he retired from office.

His trilogy, A Transylvanian Tale, also called The Writing on the Wall, was published between 1934 and 1940. Bánffy portrayed pre-war Hungary as a nation in decline, failed by a shortsighted aristocracy.

In April 1943, Bánffy visited Bucharest to persuade Ion Antonescu's Romania together with Hungary to abandon the Axis and sue for a separate peace with the Allies (see also Romania during World War II). The negotiations with a delegation led by Gheorghe Mironescu broke down almost instantaneously, as the two sides could not agree on a future status for Northern Transylvania (which Romania had ceded to Hungary in 1940, and where Bonchida was located). Two years later, in revenge for Bánffy's actions in Bucharest, his estate at Bonchida was burned and looted by the retreating German army.

Hungary and Transylvania were soon invaded by the Soviet Union's Red Army, an event which marked an uncertain status for Northern Transylvania until its return to Romania. His wife and daughter fled to Budapest while Bánffy remained on the spot in a vain attempt to prevent the destruction of his property. Soon after, the frontier was closed. The family remained separated until 1949, when he was allowed by Romanian communist authorities to leave for Budapest, where he died the following year.

A mellowing communist regime in Hungary permitted the reissue of A Transylvanian Tale in 1982, and it was translated into English for the first time in 1999. The Castle of Bonchida is now being restored as a cultural center. An apartment is being prepared for the use of the Count's family.

Reviews

[Janelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an excellent collection of short stories by a writer known as the Romanian Tolstoy. I’m not sure that I got Tolstoy vibes from these stories but perhaps his novels deserve the connection.
The subject matter was quite varied from a scene post-battle of Troy, to inviting the devil to drinks, an evil man who wears the mask of a good man, a beautiful woman sacrificed to a god in India, a young woman carrying out a ritual before her wedding, a man who swindles land from his stepson so his wife curses him by fasting(!), and most impressively for its time a story about how humans are destroying the planet. Many of them read almost like fables or fairy tales, some have a story within a story, or contain superstition or magic and there’s a lot of atmosphere. My favourites in the collection were “Little Borbalka and the Terrifying Safranics”, “Helen in Sparta” and “The Contaminated Planet”. An entertaining read.

[Ends of the Word · Rating 4 out of 5]

Count Miklós Bánffy de Losoncz (1873 —1950), to give him his full name, was born to a long-established Transylvanian noble family and eventually held a number of political positions in Hungary, including that of Foreign Minister at tumultuous times in the history of the region. A veritable Renaissance man, he was an artist and stage designer, as well as the author of five plays, a novel, and several short stories. These certainly deserve a wider readership in the English-speaking world, and I am sure that this selection of stories which is being published by Pushkin Press in a translation by Len Rix (well known for his translations of Antal Szerb for the same publishing house) will go a long way towards addressing this.

I feel silly saying this, but when I started this collection whose title includes the word “Night”, written by a Transylvanian count to boot, I somehow expected this to be a collection about vampiric derring-do. Of course I was wrong, and the choice of stories reveals Bánffy’s versatility both as to choice of themes and settings. Which doesn’t mean that there isn’t space for fantasy and magic, sometimes tapping into the traditions and landscape of Transylvania. Such is the case, for instance, with the opening story Wolves, which draws an analogy between the cruelty of wolves and human greed, or Tale from a Mountain Village, a story about marital abuse with elements of folklore and superstition. One could also mention Little Borbalka and the Terrifying Safranics, about a girl who warns an outcast about a plan to murder him.

Bánffy’s choice of settings however goes well beyond the confines of the country he loved or the era he was living in. One story has as its protagonist Helen of Troy. Another – The Miraculous Tale of Gaspar Loki - speaks of a pleasure-seeking Hungarian knight at the time of the Venetian Republic. In The Emperor’s Secret, an official of the Chinese Emperor is held prisoner by the forces of Attila the Hun. There's even a futuristic sci-fi piece - The Contaminated Planet - which remains particularly relevant in our ecologically-minded times.

But most representative of Bánffy’s style is the title story. Mimi, a young and ingenuous aristocrat, arrives in an unnamed Mediterranean coastal town, accompanied by her grandmother. A stroll into the surrounding countryside is rudely interrupted by the flaring up of hostilities between rebels and rulers, and Mimi ends up being escorted by a down-and-out musician to a dubious establishment hidden in the hills. Under the light of the moon these seedy surroundings assume a mystical aura, infused with “the perfume of olive blossom, of lilac and jasmine”. Mimi falls in love and witnesses an esoteric female-only ritual, before the sun rises and reality reappears within its glare. The heady, dreamlike, Southern atmosphere of this story reminded me of the novel Journey by Moonlight, by another Hungarian, and near contemporary of Bánffy, Antal Szerb. This was a fitting conclusion to a haunting collection.

For full review, including an appendix on Banffy and the composer Bela Bartok:

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/20...

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Miklos Banffy has a few works available in translation, but his collected short stories in "The Enchanted Night" are the perfect gateway to his writing

Without spoiling the stories, I can say that each and every one is a deep dive into another world, somewhere between our space and the place where the "other" begins. The inspirations for these stories come from far and wide, and even where subtle aspects are (inevitably) lost on an anglophone Western audience unfamiliar with Banffy's work, era, and culture, the wonderful prose in translation just sweeps the reader away.

The collection starts strong and ends strong, immersing you in a still, uneasy atmosphere. I cannot wait to pick up a hard copy and read the stories aloud on a hot summer evening or a lone winter night.

Recommended if you like short fiction, stories with a strong sense of tone and place, and anything from Greek mythology to folk tales and Shakespeare.

Thank you to Pushkin Press and Netgalley for granting me a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

What delighted me the most about this engaging short story collection from acclaimed Hungarian author Miklos Banffy was the fact that they are each so different, each one a new theme, a new time, a new place. It’s rare to enjoy every single story in a collection equally – there are always a few that don’t work so well – but in this case I liked all of them and once I realised just how varied they were I eagerly looked forward to the next. I don’t read a lot of short stories – they aren’t my preferred reading – but I found these ones so compelling and so well-written, conjuring up whole worlds in just a few pages. From Sicily to Venice and a supernatural element, from Helen of Troy to a Chinese prisoner, from science fiction to folk tales. There’s something for everyone here, and kudos to Pushkin Press for making them available to an English speaking readership for the first time since they were written in the 1940s. Banffy is best known for his monumental Transylvanian Trilogy, and this eclectic collection is a welcome opportunity to get better acquainted with his work.

[Alex Sarll]

Miklós Bánffy was by his own lights a Hungarian writer; Hell, he was the country's foreign minister*. But his ancestral estates are now in Romania, and given the way the borders have shifted in that part of the world during and since his time, it's tempting to avoid complication simply by calling him Transylvanian. Which comes with its own baggage, of course; as the introduction says, "The reader will find none of the conventional horrors associated with the name, but also nothing of the picturesque idyll conjured up in Patrick Leigh Fermor's Between the Woods and the Water." Still, one can't feel too guilty about the exoticism when it goes both ways; there's a story here with the lovely detail of its lead, a Transylvanian who seems closer to a Bánffy avatar than many of his protagonists, fascinated to visit Scotland and realise that the locations from Macbeth are real places. There are stories here set in Bánffy's homeland, and if neither horror nor idyll, they still seem like they take place somewhere a long way away in both space and time; characters have names like Demeter and Pantyilimon, and there's a sense of clannishness and frontier justice which feel more of a piece with the Bronze Age setting of the mordant Helen In Sparta than with one's first associations for the Habsburg twilight. Easy as it is these days to grasp at profundity by overusing the word 'liminal', I did find myself wondering how much of Bánffy's sensibility as a writer comes from having a deep attachment to a place which was tossed back and forth between the empires, and ill-served by them all. Many of the pieces sit oddly between the tale as once tales were told – things happen, there is derring-do and combat, often elements of the supernatural - and the short story as it would become in litfic circles – the excitement is often at one remove; the conclusion is more often a suspended and/or reflective moment than one where the threat is vanquished. It's a fruitful place to be, but an awkward one too. Put it this way; there are two stories with Chinese protagonists. One, The Stupid Li, is a knockabout satire explaining how the most stupid man in a country might come to be its leader, his asinine pronouncements examined for a wisdom they do not possess. I'm sure topical echoes were intended back in the day, but I suspect the parallels with our own time work even better; the overall effect is of a more raucous and less oblique Ernest Bramah. But then you also have The Emperor's Secret, in which a Chinese ambassador, imprisoned for decades, continues faithfully to cling to a secret about which nobody has cared for years. It's a heartbreaking portrait of duty with no external referent and feels, if not quite like full Borges, then certainly a mood he would have recognised. Now, for me, being able to do both of these things in one fairly slim book is part of what's great about short stories. But when it comes to acquiring lots of fans, becoming a literary brand - maybe not so much.

Perhaps the most idiosyncratic of the lot is the final and title story. We open on an empty-headed child of privilege, young Emilie von Moppelwahl – who is to be found in Part Two of the Almanach de Gotha – musing on the various etymologies of her family name, and how she much prefers the version where "the old German forests were rampaged by terrifying fearsome wild beasts called pugs (Ger.: Mopps) – terrifying predators the size of full-grown lions", which the dynasty's founder would fearlessly slay, to the one where he merely found the empress a more familiar type of pug – or another, even less heroic reading. As soon as we hear she's engaged to a princeling from Part One of the aforementioned volume, whom she barely knows, we can guess roughly where the story will take her – but the route it winds along still comes as a surprise, managing to encompass another horribly timely scenario (the unwitting innocent caught up in a war they never dreamed could come so close, so quickly) as well as the old, sad story whereby what seems like an enchanted land by the light of the Moon feels considerably more mundane by the grey light of day. The descriptions of enchanted moments and breathtaking views are gorgeous stuff; perhaps a little overwritten, but then to catch this mood they need to be. The satire, on the other hand, sometimes feels overegged even for satire – "she cared not a whit for the sort of pedantry that did not square with her puffed-up young maiden's snobbish pride" could really afford to lose a synonym or two. But then, there were a few times throughout the book where I wondered whether the translator was either having an off day, or else not doing all he might to show the writer to advantage in a very different language. Which is odd, because said translator is Len Rix, and of the very small amount of other Hungarian literature I've read, at least two books of it (both by Antal Szerb) were also put into English by him, working for the same publisher (Pushkin), and those were wonderfully done. Sometimes I could accept that a word choice which felt odd to me, such as the use of 'psychic' for rustic divination in Little Borbalka And The Terrifying Safranics, might well be entirely deliberate, or at least true to the original – the metropolitan writing about country ways. Elsewhere, though, are clear glitches: "Since then, for some thirty years now, he had lived in one of these prisons within five or six arrow shots of the main camp, for some thirty years now."

Still, I was reading a Netgalley ARC, so this may well be sorted in the final copies, and even if not, those are only a few infelicities scattered around a dozen stories which, if they often felt elusive, were never less than intriguing. I can't claim it's left me exactly champing at the bit for the enormous trilogy Bánffy also wrote, and whose first volume I already own, but I am quietly curious to one day find out how someone who created such self-willed, contrary, almost feline short works would read on that monumental scale.

*It sometimes seems like any famous Hungarian of the early 20th century was also active in the young nation's politics; see also pioneering trade unionist Bela Lugosi, associated with the country's communist party back before that all went horribly wrong. I've never known why there aren't more 'Bela Lugosi's red' puns from leftie goths.

[Nicki Markus · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Enchanted Night was an interesting and mostly enjoyable collection of tales. Bánffy is often described as the Romanian Tolstoy, but, to be honest, I didn't really see that from these pieces; although, a single short story collection is perhaps not the best gauge. The stories varied in quality, a few I really enjoyed, otherwise were okay, but a few also fell a little short of the mark. It is a very eclectic mix in terms of both theme and setting, but that does allow each of them to fell like individual pieces and not just a repetition of the last. If you are a fan of short stories and/or early 20th century European literature, this book is worth checking out. I would be interested to read some of Bánffy's longer works in the future, to see how I feel about those. And I always appreciate the chance to sample of the works of different authors who may not have been translated into or read much in English before. Overall, I am giving this book 3.5 stars.

I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Stef Smulders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Old-fashioned storytelling, I love it! No experimental switching of perspective in mid-sentence, quotation marks for dialogue, straightforward action, in short all the old-school rubbish that keeps the reader engaged. Simple stories but very enjoyable, especially the title story.

[Sewingdervish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some wonderful stories her. Haunting things that will stay with you a long time.

[Fannybrice · Rating 4 out of 5]

ARC kindly provided by publisher through Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review.

The first thing I heard about Miklós Bánffy is that he was known as the Hungarian Tolstoy. Needless to say I was immediately intrigued. The idea of a whole new Tolstoy left to discover in a land which, at least to me, was culturally more remote and mysterious than Russia itself, seemed irresistible. The connection with Tolstoy is often made on account of Bánffy’s Transylvanian Trilogy: a body of work that spans the last ten years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, also a family saga and a portrait of a conflicted aristocracy and its impending demise.

Enchanted Night however, bears nothing of that weight and is a captivating read for a very different set of reasons. The volume contains a selection of 12 tales that take you from the depths of the Carpathian forests to the light breeze of an Italian villa in the summer. Miklós Bánffy was not only a novelist, he was also born a Count into a well-established Romanian dynasty. And this transpires. Reading the stories is like catching a glimpse of a truly cosmopolitan and exclusive world, untainted by frequent flyer miles and other drab tricks of our time. As we travel from Scotland to Venice, or even re-visit ancient citadels and myths, the wonderful illusion is created that we are touring the world in the company of influential friends who will always get us as a seat at the most fabulous tables in town.

The writing is easy and I am almost tempted to say unaffected even though the fact that the stories were written around the 1920s doesn’t exactly help unless you count yourself among those easily hypnotized by the intrinsic glamour of the period, as do I. I don’t think you could call the stories perfect from a structural standpoint but there is enough detail to create a setting and enough action to set the scene in motion. And just about the right amount of wit and eccentricity to keep you engaged throughout.

Structural considerations aside, one element remains undeniable to me and I suspect it is what created the invisible thread in my personal journey through the stories that kept me pushing on through to read only a few more pages every night (and kept me off Netflix consistently) and it is this: a certain sense of “fantastic tension”. There is a masterful use of suspense that brings plots very close to a breaking point where it would seem there is no other way to resolve the storyline than to resort to a supernatural element.

Interestingly enough, this almost never ends up being the case, and yet there is an atmosphere of magical latency that pervades the text even as it contradicts the narrator’s own voice which is often openly dismissive of silly “superstitions”. It’s in this contested space where we are left alone, faced with a sense of uncertainty, and ultimately wonder, that extends endlessly beyond the page. A feeling very close to that guilty, lingering, impossible one last Christmas Eve, when we were already way too old to still harbor unreasonable belief.

[Theediscerning · Rating 3 out of 5]

The introduction here is correct – people will come to these stories for the distinct Transylvanian flavour of old we can get from the better of these short stories. Opening with languid description of the snow-clad hills we first see men and wolves pick off the unwanted amongst themselves, in a quiet story you always think will lead to more violence and drama than it does. Next a young bride-to-be is kind of fixated on the man living next door, a supernaturally adept forester and ranger, who puts too many backs out with his ability to chase off poachers and illicit logging. This was really enjoyable, apart from the awkward ending. A similar, less spooky ranger, dobs in his son-in-law to claim their land, but doesn't like the justice that is possibly meted out to him by his wife – or perhaps by a toad.

Predictable, is the word that describes the third piece, where we break away to Sicily but hear of a legendarily evil knight and the ruse he plays on everyone about being a good 'un. Somewhere out east, centuries before they became the Soviet steppes, a prisoner holds on to a secret message for a mighty long time. Unexpected, perhaps, is the dream a man has when staying with game hunters in the Scottish wilds – it's kind of childish and childishly bodged science fiction, but still actually pertinent despite the way the framing scene and discussions of Scotland get in the way somewhat. We might be anywhere for a priest whose vocation didn't quite work out as he wished, worried about his atheist neighbour not getting the correct send-off while on his death bed. A most distinctive kind of ghost story comes to us from Venice, and a legendary dunce from ancient China. The overlong title piece is set around a Mediterranean resort town, where a young noblewoman is cut off from the safety of her hotel due to war breaking out.

A lot of these pieces are then little to do with Eastern Europe, and the people there, but they are still very interesting. The author, who also worked in theatre, and as a minister and diplomat, certainly deserves to be in translation with these pieces. I didn't like the earliest work here, but the bulk (coming from a source just called "Short Stories" in Hungarian) showed him pretty adept at the form when he wanted to be – there are some very memorable stories here. Three and a half stars.

[Pearse Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

ARC provided by the publisher through Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review.

I really appreciate this book existing - I'm always interested in reaidng more translated fiction, especially work that's never been translated before! As someone of Transylvanian descent (apparently, can I trust my grandfather when he says this?), it was an interesting book to read, although it did bop around locations and time periods (often providing lower-quality stories in other places, such as a Helen of Troy piece I didn't love). I DNFed the book at 68%, just shy of my 70% cutoff, because of how pulled in I was by the stories and their plots (I found them less than exciting, and overlong). The review copy I was given did not mark when the next story began, so it was hard for me to judge how much more I'd have to slog through, and eventually I stopped trying. My two favorite pieces were the ones involving a dying athiest philosopher who wants to repent and ask for last rites, and the Chinese diplomat who was kidnapped in Hungary for decades. That last one might make it only best short prose of the year? We'll see.

[Michael Samerdyke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very pleasant discovery.

I had never heard of Banffy before, but the descriptions of his books looked interesting, and I thought I would try with this volume of short stories.

They are different. They aren't exactly fantasy, but they aren't realism either. I would hesitate to call them "magic realism" either.

Banffy's stories don't end up where I expect them to go, but it is always fun getting to the ending. I really enjoyed his stories set in Transylvania, but his more "international" stories are well worth reading too.

I suppose I liked "Wolves," "Little Borbalaka," "The Emperor's Secret" and "Tale from a Mountain Village" best, but there were no clinkers in this volume. I will probably re-read several of these stories again.

[M T · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to review this book because I have read the original, Hungarian versions of these tales, and wanted to see if the translations held up.

Overall this was a good book, but unfortunately I have to say that the original versions are still better!

For all of those who don’t speak Hungarian however, these will be better than nothing - and I’m so so glad that more people will be able to read these stories now!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with early access to these.

[James Austin-Marks · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book! Every story in the collection left a strong impression on me.

Each tale was more like a parable, with a mix of clear and subtle messages throughout.

My particular favourite was "The Dying Lion", which explores faith in both a religious sense and in other humans.

The language and imagery in "The Enchanted Night" was gorgeous and was a fitting end to this wonderful collection.

[Leslie S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Enchanted Night” is a collection of short stories written by Miklós Bánffy, a Hungarian nobleman who, and in addition to writing short stories and novels, studied law, music, painting, and even served as his country’s foreign minister. These short stories were published roughly between 1896 and 1946, and include many different subjects, although most of his stories focus on the Transylvanian region and the role of folklore and superstition.

[Nicole Witen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars (rounded down)

This was a nice collection of stories, featuring Central Europe, mostly. It was interesting and quite different to read about Italy or Ancient Greece from a Hungarian perspective. Banffy is an excellent writer, and I have enjoyed everything I have ever read by him. If I was going to recommend his work, though, I would recommend his Transylvanian Trilogy over his short stories.

[Keval · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enchanting collection of short stories drawn in some cases from superstitions and folklore. My favourites are The Contaminated Planet (quite ahead of its time given when it was written), Wolves and The Satan. Truly a blessing that Pushkin Press digs up and resuscitates gems like these.

[Tanja · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wide-ranging collection of short stories touching on war, myth, revenge, and superstition

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, entertaining collection. Lighter read, for the most part, than the Transylvania Trilogy.

[Katrine Engelhardt Thomsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

2,5 stars rounded up to 3. Just not my kind of stories.

[anna_frcska · Rating 5 out of 5]

not grandad getting that bag in story #1, mad respect ✊

[Maggie Desbaillets · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprised by how much I enjoyed these stories (I suppose it might be because they were so creative and fairytale-esque). It reminded me very much of Chekov's style of writing!

[Vansa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had never heard of Miklos Banffy, whose own life is like something out of fiction. This collection of short stories , first written in the 1940s, has been translated in English for the first time, and I'm really grateful to Pushkin Press for publishing this. The very unique context of the writers background is borne out in the stories, and it gave me an insight into this part of Eastern Europe. As the book description sAys, the setting of the stories ranges from classical antiquity to Transylvania of the authors day. Some are ostensibly fairytales, but they're off-kilter: a wizard may do you a favour, but he won't be able to help you with the prince's toxic masculinity; you might play a minor but pivotal role in a war for your country, but set against the sweep of history- you might just be irrelevant , or, as the absolute gut punch of the first story reveals- it can take very little to turn humans into barbaric wild beasts! The writer has a remarkable grasp of history, and each story is so evocative it led me down multiple internet rabbitholes. Given that Banffy lived through 2 World Wars and a devastating pandemic, it makes sense that The stories are all suffused with a sense of loss , and of the world disintegrating, specially the very poignant last story that satirises the ostrich-in-the-sand attitudes of minor European aristocracy. The author seems to want to speak to the common bonds of humanity that should unite us in a crisis- his protagonists always try to do the right thing, but unlike a regular fairytale, that doesn't always work out. All you can do, though, is soldier on, and maybe things will get better! That seems to be the guiding force of the author's life as well, given his courageous opposition to Nazism. Highly recommend this haunting collection, where every story is absolutely excellent.

[fleshy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A set of short stories across a variety of subjects. At times funny, surprising, intriguing, and tragic.

[Imola · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Kiadó konkrétan félreinformálja a kedves olvasót: nem két kisregény, hanem egy kisregény és számos rövid történet, novella található a kötetben.
Ettől függetlenül Bánffy szépséges írás- és elbeszélőmódja megvan, a novellák pedig nagyon sokfélék, témájukban akár meglepőek is.

[Molly Trammell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an ARC review of this edition. Thanks to Netgalley and Pushkin Press.

This is a beautiful, eerie collection of tales by a marvelous Hungarian storyteller.