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Sándor Szathmári (1897-1974) was among the most extraordinary and elusive figures in twentieth-century Hungarian literature. The author of two published novels and several story collections in his native tongue, he is best known for Voyage to Kazohina--which, titled Kazohinia on most editions in Hungary, has been treasured by generations of readers. Szathmári spent much of his career as a mechanical engineer; this, together with his limited oeuvre, the biting satire of his magnum opus, and his political persuasions--which ranged from an early, ambivalent affiliation with communism to anticommunism as Hungary became a communist dictatorship--kept him ever on the margins of the officially sanctioned literary establishment. A central figure in Hungary's Esperanto movement for decades, Szathmári published his writings--including, most famously, Voyage to Kazohinia--in his own Esperanto-language editions, ensuring him a measure of international recognition and literary freedom during the communist era.
Massively entertaining! . . . Make room for the new Gulliver. He has brought home news out of Kazohinia. -- Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and Out of Oz<br> <br> Written in 1935, Voyage to Kazohinia is a strikingly postmodern and open-ended dystopia that rightfully belongs among the twentieth-century classics of the genre. And it is unique in being less a strident political cautionary tale than it is a brilliantly mordant reflection on government, reason, and language. <br>--Carter Hanson, Associate Professor of English, Valparaiso University <br> [A] dystopian cult classic. . . . Gulliver washes up on the island of Kazohinia, which is populated by bizarre inhabitants . . . whose sense of morality and society force [him] to reconsider his own understanding of life, love, and death. <br> --Publishers Weekly <br> Highly entertaining. . . . Readers familiar with the classic Swift satire will find much to admire here, but those unfamiliar with Gulliver's Travels should still have a good time. <br>-- Booklist <br> However you interpret it, the novel is most certainly a literary masterpiece. -- William Auld <br> Like Milton . . . Szathmari is fascinated by humankind's precarious oscillation between good and evil; and, like the novelist Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, he is deeply suspicious of notions of human perfectibility this side of heaven itself. --Humphrey Tonkin, President Emeritus of the University of Hartford <p> As if Bradbury and Orwell had been mixed with fresh wild berries, Voyage to Kazohinia was so ahead of its time that its time still hasn't caught up. Perhaps now it will. --Miklos Vamos, author of The Book of Fathers<br> <br> Voyage to Kazohinia belongs on every bookshelf alongside the works of Orwell, Huxley, and Zamyatin. -- Gyorgy Dragoman, author of The White King. <br> Sandor Szathmari writes in the best tradition of Jonathan Swift in using the framework of an adventure story for a fascinatingo
