Synopses & Reviews
Hungary, 1956. Without a word, Katalin leaves her family and sets out for the West. Her husband, Kalman, abandons the family farm and begins a long and circuitous journey through Hungary with his two young children, Kata and Isti. Staying briefly with distant relatives in unfamiliar cities and villages, Kalman keeps his family on the move and shuns anything resembling a home or a steady life. As their father sinks into depression, Kata and her brother create their own imaginary universe: Kata invents relationships with the people they meet during their long journey while Isti converses with the world around him-houses, stones, snow, skies. It is only in rare moments, on riverbanks and lakeshores where Kata and Isti swim with their father, that they experience a semblance of calm and happiness. Moments that feel as if life is just beginning for them . . .
Review
"[An] outstanding debut novel...[it] introduces a potentially great voice in world literature"
Review
"Bank's interest in how the imagination can fill absence and longing with portents is grounded in exceptional powers of description" The New Yorker
Review
"[A] spare, resonant debut" New York Times Book Review
Review
"THE SWIMMER's greatest strength is in imagining what happens to those left in the wake of a mother's desertion."
About the Author
Zsuzsa B-nk is the recipient of numerous prizes and fellowships and has already achieved great success in Europe with this, her first novel. She lives in Frankfurt.