P\u00e9ter N\u00e1das was born Budapest in 1942. In the 1960s he was a photo reporter and journalist, and worked for \u00bbN\u00f6k Lapja\u00ab magazine and the daily \u00bbPest Megyei Hirlap\u00ab.<\/p>\n
At the age of 23 he gave his literary debut with \u00bbA biblia\u00ab (1967; tr.: The Bible). The novella about the Stalinist R\u00e1kosi regime already reveals N\u00e1das\u2019 subtle way of reflecting political and historical aspects in private scenes. Between 1969 and 1977 all his works were censored. Therefore, his first novel \u00bbEgy csal\u00e1dreg\u00e9ny v\u00e9ge\u00ab (1977; Eng. \u00bbThe End of a Family Story\u00ab, 1998) was published very late. It is the story of a child and a totalitarian regime that haunts the young narrator even in his dreams. N\u00e1das has the levels of time and reality merge, a narrative method, which he perfects in his subsequent works. The novelist became internationally known with \u00bbEml\u00e9kiratok k\u00f6nyve\u00ab (1986; Eng. \u00bbA Book of Memories\u00ab, 1997), a book on which he worked for eleven years, and which Susan Sontag called \u00bbthe best novel of our times\u00ab. In an alienated literary mise en abyme <\/i>the narrations of the first-person narrator overlap, duplicate, merge and flow into each other. The story is set in two cities that have been equally marked by ideologies: Berlin and Budapest. N\u00e1das has published short stories, essays, theatre plays and illustrated books. Alongside his other writing, he was working on his opus magnum, which would go beyond the previous novel in terms of volume and complexity: \u00bbP\u00e1rhuzamos t\u00f6rt\u00e9netek\u00ab (2005; Eng. \u00bbParallel Stories\u00ab, 2011) begins with the discovery of a corpse in Berlin\u2019s Tiergarten park a few weeks after the fall of the Wall, and covers the panorama of the whole century in three volumes. Chaos has become the principle of composition here. Plots are often interrupted abruptly, in order to continue hundreds of pages later. In \u00bbParallel Stories\u00ab the author finds a language which, in its virtuosity, fits in with the bodily and intimate character of the book. Recent publications include his \u00bbMemoirs of a Narrator\u00ab, \u00bbVil\u00e1gl\u00f3 r\u00e9szletek\u00ab (2017; tr: Bright Details). In the account \u00bbSaj\u00e1t hal\u00e1l\u00ab (2004; Eng. \u00bbOwn Death\u00ab, 2006), he describes his own near-death experience after a heart attack. The volume \u00bbTal\u00e1t cetli \u00e9s m\u00e1s elegyes \u00edr\u00e1sok\u00ab (1992; tr: Freedom Exercises and Other Small Prose) brings together miniatures from three decades.<\/p>\n
N\u00e1das received the Austrian State Prize for European Literature in 1991, the Franz Kafka Literary Award in 2003, and the W\u00fcrth Prize for European Literature (2014). For his last novel he and his translator Christina Viragh were awarded the Literature and Translation Prize \u00bbBr\u00fccke Berlin\u00ab 2012. N\u00e1das lives in Gombosszeg and Budapest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"template":"","jct-role":[1080],"jct-origin":[507],"jct-ilb-years":[603,606,615],"class_list":["post-41018","authors","type-authors","status-publish","hentry","jct-role-author","jct-origin-hungary","jct-ilb-years-2009-en","jct-ilb-years-2012-en","jct-ilb-years-2021-en"],"yoast_head":"\n