Why a Booktrail?
1956, 1993: Sometimes dreams and reality can fuse in unexpected ways
A Remedy for All Things
What you need to know before your trail
Catherine arrives in Budapest in winter 1993 to begin researching a novel based on the poet, Attila József, she starts dreaming the life of a young woman imprisoned after the 1956 Uprising. More disconcertingly, by day this woman, Selene Virág, is with her, dreaming Catherine’s life just as she dreams Selenes. Obsessed with uncovering the facts, Catherine discovers that Selene was a real person who lived through the persecution of Jews in Hungary during WW2, but what is most disorienting is that Selene believed Attila József to be the father of her daughter, Miriam, despite the fact that József committed suicide in December 1937, eighteen years before Miriam was born. How do the three lives of Catherine, Selene and Attila fit together?
Travel Guide
Travel BookTrail style to Hungary and discover Attila József
The son of Áron József—a soap factory worker and a Hungarian peasant girl. He was born in Ferencváros, a poor district of Budapest.When Attila József was three years old he was sent to live with foster parents after his father abandoned the family and his mother became ill. She died in 1919, aged only 43.
Franz Joseph University – his dream was to become a secondary school teacher – however he was found to be ‘unfit for teaching’ because of a provocative poem he had written many years earlier. (With All My Heart).
Poetry
He started making money from his poetry after this point but became ill with schizophrenia. He died on 3 December 1937, aged 32, at Balatonszárszó, where he was hit by a train. There is a memorial to him not far from the spot where he died. It is still despbuted whether he died from suicide or by accident.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: A Remedy for All Things
Destination/Location : Budapest, Hungary Author/Guide: Jan Fortune Departure Time: 1950s, 1990s
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