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Born in Budapest in 1955, Péter Farkas has resided in Cologne since 1982. From the late Seventies he was active in the work of Hungary’s democratic opposition as editor of the samizdat Túlpartról (‘From the Far Side’).
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1966 Háló - Szinopsis (Net - Synopsis, novel)
2004 Törlesztés - Kivezetés a gólemból (Defrayal - Leading Out from the Golem, novel)
2007 Nyolc perc (Eight Minutes, novel)
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2007
Eight minutes
(Magvető)
This is a heart-rending yet dispassionately precise scrutiny concerning two old people, a married couple who are shortly going to die but are, as yet, still alive in a vegetative state. They are no longer able to recollect everything, but they love one another. They go through all the pains of physical and mental deterioration (sex included!) and take delight in the last little pleasures of live (damson jam, for instance). They are living in an unnamed town, and they themselves are not given names. All that�s important is that they are human beings, sentient, breathing creatures who are ready for the final destruction. Their fate acts as a mirror to their younger fellow humans. That is how we shall be in our senility, if we get that far�for better or worse. Miklós Mészöly�s novella Film, a sort of a slow-motion account of an old couple shuffling along a deserted city street as dusk approaches is the most obvious precedent in the depth of insight it affords into old age, but Farkas�s short novel could be said to outstrip even that. The title given to the volume is an allusion to the fact that if the Sun were to be destroyed, we on Earth would only know about it eight minutes later. What more can one say. �Farkas�s language strikes me as distinctly accomplished, accurate and sensitive.. He manages the trick of being able to make a Beckettian world rich� A splendid little volume for which I wish a good fate.� Péter Esterházy, Élet és Irodalom
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