Adam Biro - Two zsidó utazik a vonaton ... bővitett

"Two Jews are traveling on a train," says Adam Biro in the introduction to his book. – “All Jewish jokes in Central Europe start like this, or at least almost all of them. You can say: history, our history, no longer allows us to talk about trains half-heartedly. After all, they evoke horrible memories in the Jews. But this traditional sentence, with which many of my tales begin, is from earlier, from the time when trains did not carry anyone to death... At that time, journeys were interrupted by many stations, when itinerant vendors walked the length of the platforms, pretzels, selling lemonade and beer, the passengers got on and off, they offered each other on the train, it was full of meetings, friendships, exchanges, events everywhere. Then all of a sudden the greys, the uniformed monsters, appeared to destroy this tableau, as well as everything else.

Two Jews are traveling on the train. They can be old and ugly, elegant, good-looking young men; they listen and look at the landscape; this one is rich here, that one is destitute wretched; they talk incessantly, say clichés and trifles, are rude to each other - all the pain and all the wisdom of the world speak of them. The deep, deep hopelessness, the joy of life, the unspeakable calamity that existence means... I myself do not resemble any of them, I do not recognize myself among them - but upon arrival I already know that I am one of these two Jews. And the other one too. These Jewish stories, none of which happened to me, and none of which I invented, portray me, describe me, and explain me. This is always my story.

And yours."

In the new, expanded edition of the highly successful volume published 15 years ago, Adam Biro presents readers with a series of additional stories. Adam Biro, Ádám Bíró, left Budapest in 1956, when he was 15 years old. He lives in Paris, where he was a prestigious art book publisher for decades. Nowadays, he writes: short stories, novels, plays, essays. Several of these have already been translated into English, Italian and Dutch.