A poet's memoir of his mother that flows backwards through time, through a tumultuous period of European history - a tender and yet unsparing autobiographical journey.
**A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK**
"A truly remarkable book . . . fiercely compelling" EDMUND DE WAAL
*WINNER OF THE JAMES TAIT BLACK MEMORIAL PRIZE* *SHORTLISTED FOR THE JEWISH WINGATE PRIZE*
"I've read no memoir that moved me more" MIRANDA SEYMOUR
"The writing is always scrupulous . . . [a] compelling memoir" BLAKE MORRISON
"Beautifully written and utterly compelling" Sunday Times
"An original, probingly thoughtful memoir" EVA HOFFMANN
In July 1975, Magda Szirtes died in the ambulance on the way to hospital after she had tried to take her own life. She was fifty-one years old. The Photographer at Sixteen spools into the past, through her exile in England, her flight with her husband and two young boys from Hungary in 1956 and her time in two concentration camps, her girlhood as an ambitious photographer, and the unknowable fate of her vanished family in Transylvania.
The woman who emerges - with all her contradictions - is utterly captivating. What were the terrors and obsessions that drove her? The Photographer at Sixteen reveals a life from the depths of its final days to the comparable safety of its childhood. It is a book born of curiosity, of guilt and of love.
| ISBN: | 9780857058553 |
| Publication date: | 6th February 2020 |
| Author: | George Szirtes |
| Publisher: | MacLehose Press an imprint of Quercus Publishing |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 240 pages |
| Genres: |
Memoirs |
A poet's memoir of his mother that flows backwards through time, through a tumultuous period of European history - a tender and yet unsparing autobiographical journey.
**A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK**
"A truly remarkable book . . . fiercely compelling" EDMUND DE WAAL
*WINNER OF THE JAMES TAIT BLACK MEMORIAL PRIZE* *SHORTLISTED FOR THE JEWISH WINGATE PRIZE*
"I've read no memoir that moved me more" MIRANDA SEYMOUR
"The writing is always scrupulous . . . [a] compelling memoir" BLAKE MORRISON
"Beautifully written and utterly compelling" Sunday Times
"An original, probingly thoughtful memoir" EVA HOFFMANN
In July 1975, Magda Szirtes died in the ambulance on the way to hospital after she had tried to take her own life. She was fifty-one years old. The Photographer at Sixteen spools into the past, through her exile in England, her flight with her husband and two young boys from Hungary in 1956 and her time in two concentration camps, her girlhood as an ambitious photographer, and the unknowable fate of her vanished family in Transylvania.
The woman who emerges - with all her contradictions - is utterly captivating. What were the terrors and obsessions that drove her? The Photographer at Sixteen reveals a life from the depths of its final days to the comparable safety of its childhood. It is a book born of curiosity, of guilt and of love.
The Photographer at Sixteen features in the following genres: Memoirs
The Photographer at Sixteen is available in Paperback, Hardback
The Photographer at Sixteen was written by George Szirtes and published by MacLehose Press an imprint of Quercus Publishing
The Photographer at Sixteen has 240 pages
£9.89