Trafika Europe 6 - Arabesque

about the authors & works

György Spiró György Spiró (born in Budapest, 1946) has been best-known until nowas one of Hungary’smost notable playwrights. A former radio journalist, he has won virtually every literary prize in Hungary. His work combines a classical sensibilitywith decidedly contemporary language and concerns. He presently teaches at ELTE University of Budapest, where he specializes in Slavic literatures. Captivity is Spiró’s nearly 900-page juggernaut of a novel. An unconventional reconstruction of Jewish life in the First Century A.D., it follows the travails of the myopic Uri from his youth, as he makes his way in the world. Captivity has just been named by The Wall Street Journal as one of the 10 Best fiction books of 2015: “Monumental… The level of detail is stunning; Mr. Spiró seems to know absolutely everything about the first-century Mediterranean world…  [Captivity]  never loses steam. (…) You can read it as a parable of the Jewish condition amid the modern empires of Europe, or you can simply lose yourself in the ancient setting it so comprehensively describes.” Available from Restless Books. You can listen to a conversation with the author about this work here (13 minutes). Translated from Hungarian by Tim Wilkinson. A note on the author

282