Set in the present day, The Return of Baron Wenckheim tells the story of Baron Bela Wenckheim (a hero reminiscent of Prince Myshkin), who decides, at the end of his life, to return to his hometown in the Hungarian countryside.
Fleeing from Buenos Aires, to avoid being forced to pay his enormous debts to the city’s casinos, where he lived in exile, he hopes to reunite with Marika, his beloved from his school years. Back in his homeland, he finds a city full of schemers and politicians, where misery and absurdity reign.
Meanwhile, Professor K – an internationally renowned scientist studying mosses, living in a bizarre shack, like a hermitage, in an uninhabited area outside the city – incessantly raves and desperately tries to achieve immunity against his own thoughts.
Through a captivating plot, with death and the abyss lurking, the ultimate condemnation comes to crush the unsuspecting residents of the city. The Return of Baron Wenckheim is the ideal cornerstone of Krasznahorkai's tetralogy, one of the greatest achievements of contemporary literature. Now is the most suitable time to elevate the author among the greatest living writers.
A novel by Krasznahorkai may resemble an abyss, but it is an abyss from which something fertile emerges from its depths. The Paris Review
Laszlo Krasznahorkai was born in 1954 in the city of Gyula, Hungary. He studied law and philology at the Universities of Szeged and Budapest. He is considered one of the most significant contemporary Hungarian writers, faithfully serving a literature that is ambitious and demanding. He has received numerous awards (among them the Kossuth Prize, Hungary's most prestigious distinction, and the German Bestenliste Prize). In 2015, he was honored with The Man Booker International Prize. His works have been translated into English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Czech, Bulgarian, Hebrew, Japanese, and now Greek as well.
Two of Laszlo Krasznahorkai's books (The Satan's Tango and The Melancholy of Resistance) have been adapted into films by his friend, director Bela Tarr, for whom he has also written original screenplays. His books published by Polis include: The Satan's Tango, The Melancholy of Resistance, War and War, and Sheidom passed through there.
Cover photo: © Lenke Szilagyi
