Other Death
Regular price
€26.50
1990sHungary
A01=Ferenc Barnas
ArtAndHealing
Author_Ferenc Barnas
AwardWinningAuthor
Category=DS
Category=FBA
EastEuropeanLiterature
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
ExistentialCrisis
GalleryAttendant
HistoricalNarrative
HomelessnessCrisis
HungarianLiterature
LiteraryFiction
LiteraryJourney
LiteratureinTranslation
MentalHealthFiction
MidlifeCrisis
MindAndIdentity
OttilieMulzet
PoliticalUpheaval
PostCommunistEra
PostCommunistEurope
PsychologicalDrama
SebaldInfluence
TheHungarianList
ThomasBernhardEchoes
TranslatedLiterature
UrbanTrauma
Product details
- ISBN 9781803095011
- Weight: 567g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 06 Feb 2026
- Publisher: Seagull Books London Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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A lecturer’s descent into psychological chaos unfolds against the turbulent backdrop of 1990s Budapest.
In Other Death, we are thrown into the chaotic life of a forty-year-old university lecturer who is experiencing a sudden, complete psychological and existential breakdown. Afternoons disappear and years chop and change in confusion as he wanders the streets searching for work. Homelessness, alcoholism, and hate are on the rise in 1990s Budapest as symptoms of the regime change. Images flash up from other lives: a Boer pointing a shotgun in Johannesburg, bodies heaped up in the downtown area, a Volkswagen campervan parked by an empty phone box in Switzerland. As he encounters new and historic traumas embedded in the lives and the buildings around him, the unnamed narrator struggles to grasp any coherent identity. It’s only when he starts to work as a gallery attendant, observing the interactions between viewer and artwork, light and space, that he embarks on the slow healing routine towards clarity.
In Barnás’s semi-autobiographical novel, meditations on trauma and urban space, image and observation, and spiritual friendships echo the writings of W. G. Sebald and Thomas Bernhard. Like Vertigo meets The Bell Jar, the magnetic language of Other Death draws the reader into the murky workings of a mind severely afflicted.
In Other Death, we are thrown into the chaotic life of a forty-year-old university lecturer who is experiencing a sudden, complete psychological and existential breakdown. Afternoons disappear and years chop and change in confusion as he wanders the streets searching for work. Homelessness, alcoholism, and hate are on the rise in 1990s Budapest as symptoms of the regime change. Images flash up from other lives: a Boer pointing a shotgun in Johannesburg, bodies heaped up in the downtown area, a Volkswagen campervan parked by an empty phone box in Switzerland. As he encounters new and historic traumas embedded in the lives and the buildings around him, the unnamed narrator struggles to grasp any coherent identity. It’s only when he starts to work as a gallery attendant, observing the interactions between viewer and artwork, light and space, that he embarks on the slow healing routine towards clarity.
In Barnás’s semi-autobiographical novel, meditations on trauma and urban space, image and observation, and spiritual friendships echo the writings of W. G. Sebald and Thomas Bernhard. Like Vertigo meets The Bell Jar, the magnetic language of Other Death draws the reader into the murky workings of a mind severely afflicted.
Ferenc Barnás is the author of four novels in his native Hungarian. He lives in Jakarta, Indonesia. Owen Good is a translator of Hungarian poetry and prose and editor of Hungarian Literature Online and The Continental Literary Magazine.
