Orgy
ABOUT
THE BOOK
A nightmarish recounting of events from the final phase of the Holocaust in Hungary. In late 1944 and early 1945 Budapest was consigned to the rule of the fascist organization known as the Arrow Cross. They sought out individuals not only of Jewish descent but anyone they viewed as liberals, “English sympathizers” or “humanists.” One such man is the novel’s main character, the thirty-year-old factory owner, Renner. He is a successful, fearless man: the Arrow Cross have plenty of reasons to kill him. But instead of a swift execution, they torture and humiliate him even longer than usual, subsequently forcing him to assist them.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Thomas
Sneddon
Thomas Sneddon is from County Down in Northern Ireland, and now lives in Hungary teaching translation at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University.
Thomas Sneddon is from County Down in Northern Ireland, and now lives in Hungary teaching translation at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
Niklas Luhmann defines the function of art as the representation of the contingency of everyday reality, i.e. he states that works of art show the legitimacy of different points of view. The novel is set in Budapest in the winter of 1944–45, and as such it is related to the history of Hungary during the Second World War. Gábor Zoltán’s Orgy presents the atrocities committed by the Arrow Cross from the perspective of the Arrow Cross. The novel is a detailed, factual catalogue of how the most extreme atrocities are committed by those in power (and their allies) who are humiliated and oppressed: the innocent are humiliated, often in devastating ways, for the sake of pleasure. The most important thing for the perpetrators will be to deprive the individual of the most essential criteria of human existence: dignity and self-respect. Zoltán Gábor’s book makes it clear that universal evil is in all of us, and that small things can determine whether we submit to morally reprehensible forces.