Name: Biljard v Dobrayu
Price: 19.99 EUR
Availability: SoldOut
ISBN: 9789612421342

Billiards at Hotel Dobray

Biljard v Dobrayu

Dušan Šarotar

Genre:: Novel
Year of publication:: 2007
Number of pages:: 233
Rights sold:: Argentina (EDUVIM), Croatia (Fraktura), Hungary (Pannónia), Poland (Miedzymorze), Russia (Limbus Press), UK (Istros Books)
Available reading materials:: English pdf, Spanish pdf

In the centre of Murska Sobota stands the renowned Hotel Dobray, once the gathering place of townspeople of all nationalities and social strata who lived in this small town in the middle of Prekmurje, a typical Pannonian panorama on the fringe of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. The town had always been home to ethnically and culturally mixed communities – this is what gave it the charm and melos of Central-European identity. But now, in the thick of World War II, it is occupied by the Hungarian army. For the past month, Franz Schwartz’s wife Ellsie has been preparing their son Isaac, a gifted violinist, for his first solo concert, which is to take place at Hotel Dobray. Isaac is to perform at his bar mitzvah on 26 April 1944. When the German army marches into town and forces all Jews to display yellow stars on their clothes, Ellsie warns her husband that the family should flee the town. Schwartz promises her he will obtain forged documents, but not before Isaac performs his concert at the hotel.
A year later, in March 1945, Schwartz returns to the hotel on foot and alone; one of the few survivors of the horrors of Auschwitz.

Shortlisted for the Kresnik Award for best novel of the year 2008

Shortlisted for the Big Other Book Award for Translation 2019

Shortlisted for the Oxford–Weidenfeld Prize 2020

Šarotar's lyrical writing has that rare quality to show character as being both within us and outside of us. He portrays people's complex motivations and reactions as they interweave with location and circumstances.

Scottish Review
A novel in which tiny acts bear enormous significance, acts of heroism, cowardice, cruelty and honesty...

The New European
Šarotar’s prose can hardly find any parallel in literature. What does come to my mind, however, is a cinematic one: the Hungarian master of slowness Béla Tarr, directing screenplays written by László Krasznahorkai.

Večer
Billiards at the Hotel Dobray is a book written with masterly skill. Šarotar takes his time and his narration glides slowly among the stories and people’s destinies and across the landscape; a book bereft of all radicality. The eye’s gaze from way up in the air is cool, distanced, almost indifferent to people’s destinies; as if they were looked upon from a great distance, temporal as well as spatial, and the destinies of individuals were almost entirely insignificant specks in a more broadly outlined picture.

LUD Literatura
The key specific poetic trait of the author is his marked synergy of lyrical rhythms and the rhythm of prose. With its dense apocalyptic imagery, the poetic quality of the language assumes a fable-like role.

Sodobnost
Well versed as a narrator, Šarotar skilfully knits all the aspects of narration together, which results in a fresh, pleasant and carefully reflected approach bringing together two great literary qualities: lack of pretence and authenticity.

AirBeletrina

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