Regular price €16.99
Quantity:
In stock with our UK publisher. 14-28 days
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days
14 days return policy Shipping & Delivery
a whole life
A01=Magda Szabo
Author_Magda Szabo
Category=FBA
Category=FYT
chick lit
classic
contemporary
contemporary fiction
contemporary romance
david szalay
drama
elena ferrante
embers
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
fierce at heart
historical
historical fiction
historical romance
house maid
hungary
literary fiction
maid
mid century
modern classics
navigating the interior life
power of the dog
relationships
robert seethaler
secrets
social fiction
social theory
stoner
strong female protagonist
top 10 fiction
top ten fiction
transforming yourself
trust and confidence
vulnerability
womans prize fiction

Product details

  • ISBN 9781529940190
  • Weight: 206g
  • Dimensions: 128 x 196mm
  • Publication Date: 16 Apr 2026
  • Publisher: Vintage Publishing
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
Secure checkout Fast Shipping Easy returns

'A dark domestic fairy tale' New York Times

A young writer employs a housekeeper - and slowly finds herself the sole keeper of the older woman's sercrets.


Magda is a writer, Emerence her housekeeper. Magda is new to their quiet Hungarian town, while Emerence, fierce and enigmatic, knows and is known by all. Though Emerence enters Magda’s home whenever she pleases, the door to Emerence’s own strange abode remains barred. Still, somehow, over the course of twenty years, an intimate trust is built between the two, rich with shared confidences.

Yet when this trust is betrayed one dark afternoon, the pair’s complex relationship will be left forever altered, and Magda will find herself haunted until the end of her days.

For not all doors are made to be opened.

'A bone-shaking book' New Yorker

Translated by Len Rix

Magda Szabó was born in 1917 in Debrecen, Hungary. She began her literary career as a poet. In the 1950s she disappeared from the publishing scene for political reasons and made her living by teaching and translating from French and English. She began writing novels, and in 1978 was awarded the Kossuth Prize, the most prestigious literary award in Hungary. Magda Szabó died in 2007.

More from this author