A Book of Memories

First published in Hungary in 1986 after a five-year battle with censors Péter Nádas''s A Book of Memories is a modern classic a multi-layered narrative that tells three parallel stories of love and betrayal. The first takes place in East Berlin in the 1970s and features an unnamed Hungarian writer ensnared in a love triangle with a young German and a famous aging actress. The second composed by the writer is the story of a late nineteenth century German aesthete whose experiences mirror his own. And the third voice is that of a friend from the writer''s childhood who brings his own unexpected bearing to the story. Compared by critics to Proust Mann and Joyce this sensuous tour de force is unquestionably a masterpiece (The New Republic).