A01=Ferenc Barnas
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ailments
attraction
Author_Ferenc Barnas
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B06=Paul Olchvary
Category1=Fiction
Category=FA
Category=FB
COP=United Kingdom
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
demons
disease
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
escape
european authors
fear
fiction
fictional writing
hallucinations
healing
hospitals
hungarian literature
hungary
illness
jealous
jealousy
journey
Language_English
literary work
lovers
madness
mania
novels
obsession
obsessive
PA=Available
powerful
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
reactionary
recovery
sex
sexual encounters
sexuality
sickness
SN=Hungarian List
softlaunch
translated works
translation
trapped
uncertainty
unnamed narrator
unreliable
unwell
Product details
- ISBN 9780857427403
- Weight: 708g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 31 Dec 2020
- Publisher: Seagull Books London Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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Marked by powerful and evocative prose, Ferenc Barnás’s novel tells the fascinating story of a young man’s journey through his strange obsessions towards possible recovery. The unnamed narrator is the parasite, feeding off others’ ailments, but he is also a host who attracts people with the most peculiar manias. He confesses, almost amiably, his decadent attraction as a young adolescent to illnesses and hospitals. The real descent into his private, hallucinatory hell begins after his first sexual encounter; he becomes a compulsive masturbator, and then a compulsive fornicator. But to his horror, he realizes that casual sex is not casual at all for him—each one-night stand results in insane jealousy: he imagines previous lovers hovering over him every time he makes love to a woman.
When he gets to know a woman referred to as L., he thinks his demons may have finally subsided. But when he hears of her past, the jealousy returns. He seeks relief through writing—by weaving an imagined tale of L.’s amorous adventures. What will he do with this strange manuscript, and can it bring him healing?
A breathtaking blend of Dostoevskian visions, episodes of madness, and intellectual fervor, all delivered in precise, lucid prose, The Parasite is a novel that one cannot escape.
When he gets to know a woman referred to as L., he thinks his demons may have finally subsided. But when he hears of her past, the jealousy returns. He seeks relief through writing—by weaving an imagined tale of L.’s amorous adventures. What will he do with this strange manuscript, and can it bring him healing?
A breathtaking blend of Dostoevskian visions, episodes of madness, and intellectual fervor, all delivered in precise, lucid prose, The Parasite is a novel that one cannot escape.
Ferenc Barnás is the author of four novels in his native Hungarian. He lives in Jakarta, Indonesia. Paul Olchváry is a Hungarian translator and the publisher of New Europe Books, currently living in Massachusetts.
