War and War

War and War begins at a point of danger: on a dark train platform, Korim is on the verge of being attacked and robbed by thuggish teenagers. From here, we are carried along by the insistent voice of this nervous clerk. Desperate, at times almost mad, but also keenly empathic, Korim has discovered in a small Hungarian town’s archives an antique manuscript of startling beauty: it narrates the epic tale of brothers-in-arms struggling to return home from a disastrous war. Korim is determined to do away with himself, but before he commits suicide, he feels he must escape to New York with the precious manuscript and commit it to eternity by typing it out on the world wide web. Following Korim with obsessive realism through the streets of New York (from his landing in a Bowery flophouse to his move far uptown with a mad interpreter), War and War relates his encounters with a fascinating range of people in a world torn between viciousness and mysterious beauty. 

László Krasznahorkai was born in Gyula, Hungary, in 1954. Several of his works, notably his novels Sátántangó, 1985 and Az ellenállás melankóliája, 1989, have been turned into feature films by Hungarian director Béla Tarr. He wrote eight novels and many short stories and novellas. He was awarded the Man Booker International Prize (2015) and the National Book Award for Translated Literature.