The White King
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Eleven-year-old Djata makes sure he is always home on Sundays. It is the day the State Security came to take his father away, and he believes it will be a Sunday when his father is finally sent home again.
In the mean time, Djata lives out a life of adventure. He plays wargames in flaming wheat fields; hunts for gold in abandoned claymines; watches porn in a backroom at the cinema, and plays chess with an automaton. But lurking beneath his rebel boyhood, pulling at his heartstrings, is the continued absence of his father. When he finally uncovers the real truth, he risks losing his childhood for ever.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Paul
Olchváry
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
An 11-year old boy living in a dictatorial society. He narrates his everyday difficulties, the concealed family stories related to the absence of his father, the hopes and the playful and mythic ideas helping him endure the untruth and the sudden adulthood. Both funny and tragic moments build up this brutal and absurd life which is nevertheless beautiful in his eyes.