{"product_id":"the-door-9781590177716","title":"The Door","description":"\u003cb\u003eOne of \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e's \"10 Best Books of 2015\"\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAn NYRB Classics Original \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Door\u003c\/i\u003e is an unsettling exploration of the relationship between two very different women. Magda is a writer, educated, married to an academic, public-spirited, with an on-again-off-again relationship to Hungary's Communist authorities. Emerence is a peasant, illiterate, impassive, abrupt, seemingly ageless. She lives alone in a house that no one else may enter, not even her closest relatives. She is Magda's housekeeper and she has taken control over Magda's household, becoming indispensable to her. And Emerence, in her way, has come to depend on Magda. They share a kind of love--at least until Magda's long-sought success as a writer leads to a devastating revelation. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eLen Rix's prizewinning translation of \u003ci\u003eThe Door\u003c\/i\u003e at last makes it possible for American readers to appreciate the masterwork of a major modern European writer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMagda Szabó \u003c\/b\u003e(1917-2007) was born into an old Protestant family in Debrecen, Hungary's \"Calvinist Rome,\" in the midst of the great Hungarian plain. Szabó, whose father taught her to converse with him in Latin, German, English, and French, attended the University of Debrecen, studying Latin and Hungarian, and went on to work as a teacher throughout the German and Soviet occupations of Hungary in 1944 and 1945. In 1947, she published two volumes of poetry, \u003ci\u003eBárány \u003c\/i\u003e(The Lamb), and \u003ci\u003eVissza az emberig\u003c\/i\u003e (Return to Man), for which she received the Baumgartner Prize in 1949. Under Communist rule, this early critical success became a liability, and Szabó turned to writing fiction: her first novel, \u003ci\u003eFreskó\u003c\/i\u003e (Fresco), came out in 1958, followed closely by \u003ci\u003eAz oz\u003c\/i\u003e (The Fawn). In 1959 she won the József Attila Prize, after which she went on to write many more novels, among them \u003ci\u003eKatalin utca\u003c\/i\u003e (Katalin Street, 1969), \u003ci\u003eÓkút\u003c\/i\u003e (The Ancient Well, 1970), \u003ci\u003eRégimódi történet \u003c\/i\u003e(An Old-Fashioned Tale, 1971), and\u003ci\u003e Az ajtó\u003c\/i\u003e (The Door, 1987). Szabó also wrote verse for children, plays, short stories, and nonfiction, including a tribute to her husband, Tibor Szobotka, a writer and translator of Tolkien and Galsworthy who died in 1982. A member of the European Academy of Sciences and a warden of the Calvinist Theological Seminary in Debrecen, Magda Szabó died in the town in which she was born, a book in her hand. In 2017 NYRB Classics will publish \u003ci\u003eIza's Ballad\u003c\/i\u003e (1963). \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eLen Rix\u003c\/b\u003e is a poet, critic, and former literature professor who has translated five books by Antal Szerb, including the novel \u003ci\u003eJourney by Moonlight \u003c\/i\u003e(available as an NYRB Classic) and, most recently, the travel memoir \u003ci\u003eThe Third Tower\u003c\/i\u003e. In 2006 he was awarded the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize for his translation of \u003ci\u003eThe Door\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eAli Smith\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Inverness, Scotland, in 1962 and lives in Cambridge. Her latest novel is \u003ci\u003eHow to Be Both\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"New York Review of Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50598068814098,"sku":"9781590177716","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_92800133-d89d-47bb-969a-d37da58d238b.jpg?v=1732182254","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-door-9781590177716","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}