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
Paul Olchváry (1965-2024) was a well renowned translator. Paul translated many books for leading publishers, including József Debreczeni’s Cold Crematorium, György Dragomán’s The White King, Vilmos Kondor’s Budapest Noir, and Károly Pap’s Azarel. He received translation awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN America, and Hungary’s Milán Füst Foundation. His shorter translations have appeared in the Paris Review, New York Times Magazine, Kenyon Review, Tablet, AGNI, and Guernica. Born and raised in a Hungarian family in the United States, mostly near Buffalo, New York, Olchváry went on to earn an MA in writing from Indiana University, Bloomington, and then spent much of his younger adulthood in Hungary. A former senior copywriter at Princeton University Press, he was the publisher of New Europe Books and the editor-in-chief of Hungarian Cultural Studies.
Paul Olchváry (1965-2024) was a well renowned translator. Paul translated many books for leading publishers, including József Debreczeni’s Cold Crematorium, György Dragomán’s The White King, Vilmos Kondor’s Budapest Noir, and Károly Pap’s Azarel. He received translation awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN America, and Hungary’s Milán Füst Foundation. His shorter translations have appeared in the Paris Review, New York Times Magazine, Kenyon Review, Tablet, AGNI, and Guernica. Born and raised in a Hungarian family in the United States, mostly near Buffalo, New York, Olchváry went on to earn an MA in writing from Indiana University, Bloomington, and then spent much of his younger adulthood in Hungary. A former senior copywriter at Princeton University Press, he was the publisher of New Europe Books and the editor-in-chief of Hungarian Cultural Studies.
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.