TheLastWindow-Giraffe Format: ClothOverBoards

Peter Zilahy’s The Last Window-Giraffe takes its title from the fact that the first and last letters of the Hungarian alphabet match the first letters for the words “window” and “giraffe.” This genre-defying book, originally written in Hungarian, has been translated into twenty-two languages and is often cited as one of the inspirations for the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine.

On the surface, this autobiographical fiction rendered by Zilahy’s incisive x-ray vision—a heady mix of history, memoir, and farce of the highest order—is about the protests in Belgrade in 1996. But viewed through a wider lens it serves up the absurdity of all manner of authoritarianism that resonates as much today as it first did upon publication in 1999.

Tim Wilkinson worked as an academic editor in Hungary in the 1970s. Alongside a number of translations of historical works, he translated three novels by Imre Kertész.

Peter Zilahy, the author of four books, has written for numerous international media outlets, including The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Financial Times. He has been awarded fellowships and residencies all over the world, including BMI-Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress. In 2015, Zilahy joined Anthony Bourdain in Budapest for an episode of CNN’s Parts Unknown.

Serbian artist Marina Abramović is one of the most important performance artists in the world, known as the "grandmother of performance art." She pioneered a new notion of identity by bringing in the participation of observers. In 2007, she founded the Marina Abramović Institute (MAI), a nonprofit foundation for performance art.