Novel
Gold in the Mud
Sárarany
Zsigmond Móricz · 1911
Opening lines
Égető meleg nyár van.
It is a scorchingly hot summer.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
Turi Dani, a gifted young day labourer, cannot bear the narrowness of a former serf village hemmed in on all sides by great estates. He marries the daughter of a well-off peasant and uses the dowry to farm differently, to the point of multiplying the yields known in the village. His ambition grows with his success: he wants land, for himself and for his own, and goes to claim it from the count, not as a supplicant but in the name of the village peasants.
Context
The novel first appeared in 1910 in the journal Nyugat, then in volume form from the journal's press in 1911. It shows the village without idyll: the peasant becomes a conscious individual there, who wants to change his condition and that of his people, in the face of the great aristocratic estate that stifles him. An English translation by Virginia L. Lewis appeared in 2014 under the title Gold in the Mud, with the subtitle of a Hungarian peasant novel.
Who it is for
A harsh novel about the Hungarian peasantry, available in English since 2014; no French translation has been located.
Prizes and reception
His first major novel, in which critics see one of the foundations of twentieth-century Hungarian prose.
Sources for this page 4
The pages consulted to check this page.