Captivity

Description

A literary sensation in Hungary, Gyorgy Spiro's Captivity is set in the tumultuous first century A.D., between the year of Christ's death and the outbreak of the Jewish War. It follows the adventures of the feeble-bodied, bookish Uri, a young Roman Jew. Frustrated with his hapless son, Uri's father sends the young man to the Holy Land to regain the family's prestige. In Jerusalem, Uri is imprisoned by Herod and meets two thieves and (perhaps) Jesus before their crucifixion. Later he has an awakening in cosmopolitan Alexandria, and then returns home to an unexpected inheritance.

Author description

Born in 1946 in Budapest, award-winning dramatist, novelist, and translator Gyorgy Spiro has earned a reputation as one of postwar Hungary s most prominent and prolific literary figures. He teaches at ELTE University of Budapest, where he specializes in Slavic literatures. Tim Wilkinson gave up his job in the pharmaceutical industry to translate Hungarian literature and history. He is the primary translator of Nobel Prize-winner Imre Kertesz. Wilkinson s translation of Kertesz s Fatelessness won the PEN Club/Book of the Month Translation Prize in 2005."