Oliver VII (Pushkin Collection)

Len Rix

ISBN 10: 1901285790 / ISBN 13: 9781901285796

Published by Pushkin Press, United Kingdom, London, 2007

About this Item

The King is bored, weighed down by his vast military cloak and all the other impediments to commonplace adventure. So he organises a coup against himself, and abandons his ancient throne. But what should one whose only experience is that of an absolute ruler do with himself? Why, become a con-man of course! So he decides to impersonate himself, pass himself off as the ex-king Oliver VII. All of this leads to one of the oldest sources of comedy, the total inversion of identity, the piling up of paradoxes according to the fashion of the times. A playful reworking of one of the most interesting questions of existentialism: what is the Self? Szerb offered this book as a translation from a non-existent English writer, A H Redcliff.Typical Szerb humor, or a reflection of the fact that as a 'rootless cosmopolitan' his own work was banned? Under the increasing persecution of the Nazi regime, Szerb was stopped from teaching at Szeged University in 1943. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Seller Inventory # GOR002091173

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Oliver VII (Pushkin Collection)
• Publisher: Pushkin Press, United Kingdom, London
• Publication Date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1901285790
• ISBN 13: 9781901285796
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Very Good
• Weight: 181 grams

About this title

Synopsis

The restless ruler of an obscure Central European state plots a coup against himself and escapes to Venice in search of "real" experience. There he falls in with a team of con-men and ends up, to his own surprise, impersonating himself. His journey through successive levels of illusion and reality teaches him much about the world, his own nature, and the paradoxes of the human condition.

About the Authors

Antal Szerb (1901?1945) was an essayist, novelist, playwright, and a formidable scholar whose books include History of Hungarian Literature, Journey by Moonlight, The Pendragon Legend, and The Queen's Necklace. He was twice awarded the Baumgarten Prize and in 1933 he was elected president of the Hungarian Literary Academy. Len Rix also translated Journey by Moonlight and The Pendragon Legend and received the Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize for his translation of The Door.

Antal Szerb was born into a cultivated family of Jewish descent in 1901. He graduated in German, English and Hungarian, and rapidly established himself as a formidable scholar, publishing books on drama and poetry, studies of Blake and Ibsen, and Histories of English, Hungarian and World Literature. In 1933 he was elected president of the Hungarian Literary Academy. He was also known as an essayist, playwright and as the author of various novellas and a historical fiction, The Queen’s Necklace. He died in a labour camp in 1945.