Gergely Nagy: Angst: The handbook of the urban guerilla
Angst features a young cartoonist from Budapest and tracks his rapid rise, gradual burnout and ultimate disintegration. In the background of the events we read subtle observations and interpretations of the hidden life of present-day Budapest, its new and ever renewed character.
The arrival of capital was quiet, swift, and effective, like an assassin’s work. Suddenly its presence became visible everywhere: its smell, the scent of money, could be detected even through the exhaust fumes. Budapest became irrevocably sexy.
How do Croatian writers relate to the traumas of the recent past – the Yugoslav war, the decades of communism and World War II? We talked to Bosnian Croatian writer Miljenko Jergović, author of Sarajevo Marlboro, a novel which presents the city under the siege.
At last here is someone who, instead of musing over the wonders of Berlin, London and New York, takes the trouble to visit godforsaken parts of Eastern Europe such as Bukovina, Galicia or Backa – places in Romania, Ukraine or Serbia. The tattered jewel box rather than the glamorous one.
