Overview

A dreamlike, chimerical masterpiece from a lost pre-war Europe - critically acclaimed and rightly revered Baron Bagge, a cavalry officer stationed in Eastern Europe during the First World War, receives orders to ride into a platoon of Russian machine guns. But instead of meeting certain death, he and his brigade pass, unscathed, into a bizarrely peaceful land where festivities are in full swing. There he meets Charlotte Szent-Kiraly, and finds himself falling in a strange, enchanted love - a love harrowed at its edges by the threat of the enemy, and the peculiar fragility of this country's otherworldly peace . . .

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9780241615621

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An utterly captivating account of the absurdity of war, the boundary between life and death, and love as a survival exercise -- Lea Ypi Accomplished and distinctive... blending military narratives, paranormal experiences and erotic obsessions * TLS *

A rare sort of book; more like a romantic, snowbound fever dream... A story about love and valour, war and idiocy. * The Times * An utterly captivating account of the absurdity of war, the boundary between life and death, and love as a survival exercise -- Lea Ypi Accomplished and distinctive... blending military narratives, paranormal experiences and erotic obsessions * TLS *

Author Information

Alexander Lernet-Holenia (Author) Alexander Lernet-Holenia was born in Vienna in 1897. He served in the Austro-Hungarian army in the First World War and became a protege of Rainer Maria Rilke. During his life he wrote poetry, novels, plays and was a successful screenwriter. His books were included on the first Nazi blacklist and subsequently burned, but after the end of the Second World War, he again became a vital figure in Austrian cultural life. Richard Winston (Translator) Richard & Clara Winston, born in New York and educated at Brooklyn College, won several awards (the American Book Award and the PEN Translation Prize) for their translations of Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Hannah Arendt, Albert Speer, and Hermann Hesse.

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