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Price: £ 6-00 ($12-95), postage £ 1-50 ($3-00) |
€ 10,76 |
US Distributors:
Dufour Editions Inc.
P.O.B. 449, Chester Springs, Pennsylvania 19425
Telephone: (215) 458-5005
The authors of this story are little Jozek, who grew up to be big Jozef, and big Jozef, who was once little Jozek.
Big Jozef is torn between the promptings of his childhood self — little Jozek, and the admonitions of his other self — the Critic. Big Jozef, little Jozek and the Critic live in the novel as separate characters.
A Stolen Biography has been acclaimed as a brilliant social satire, and the element of political fable is seldom absent, yet politics are less a target than a starting point.
Social satire on a Communist country with a generous dose of fable and fairy-tale added... An original and unusual novel, the work of a wise and gentle man.
Times Literary Supplement
A combination of surrealistic fantasy and satire, with a view into the realities of political and social life, the book contains masterful array of playful plot devices. ... Szechter's novel is complex, but the story itself is as deceptively simple, and as enjoyable, as a folk-tale.
Publishers Weekly
Readers familiar with the unique style of satiric fable... should welcome this brilliant contribution to the genre... Szechter's book combines fantasy, satire, mounting terror, and a ringing defiance of oppression.
American Library Association's Booklist
Szechter's eloquent tale deserves a place in academic collections and larger public libraries.
Library Journal
There is an extraordinary scene in Bunuel's Phantom of Liberty in which a couple take their «lost» child with them to the police station to declare her missing, and the sergeant takes down her description by looking at her.
A similarly bizarre technique is used to equally dreamlike effect in the last novel of the Polish emigré, Szymon Szechter — a witty attack on the workings of the Communist State.
Jewish Chronicle
Good entertainment to readers who enjoy having a chuckle over problems that more often evoke ponderous prose, vituperation, or the savagery of Swiftian satire.
Slavic Review
Szymon Szechter (5th April 1920 in Lwów — 1st June 1983 in London) was an historian, held various acedemic posts and wrote on modern history and political science. The story of his life Monuments Are Not Loved was published in 1970 by Hodder & Stoughton (in America under the title In the Name of Tomorrow, Schocken, 1971), and a collection of short stories, Bridge on Ice, in 1977 by Marion Boyars.
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