What Tricks the Mind
by Rita Taryan
The comeliest woman in the village is the one with the roundest face and rosiest lips. The most eligible bachelor in the village is the one who writes the most heartfelt poetry about his mother. The great Hungarian poet, Attila József (working-class, schizophrenic, a suicide at the age of thirty-two) wrote, “For a week now, all I think about is Mama; When I stop, I start again.”
An excerpt from the novel ‘Swan Song’
by Miklós Vámos
Translated from the Hungarian by Ági Bori
As an officer of the armed forces, he made certain to stare the defiant privates in the eye until the last moment. However, he couldn’t stop the wrinkles from forming on his forehead.
