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The Last Window-Giraffe

Péter Zilahy author Tim Wilkinson translator

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Anthem Press

Published:10th Mar '08

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The Last Window-Giraffe cover

An inventive and humorous dictionary-novel of dictatorship, and a thrilling personal journey behind the Iron Curtain.

This dictionary-novel of dictatorship is a thrilling personal journey behind the Iron Curtain – and like nothing you have read before.

This book is about the madness of everyday life under a dictatorship. It shifts in theme and time, testing the borderlines of prose and poetry, fiction and non-fiction, history and autobiography – all in the unassuming guise of a child’s ABC. Filled with his own striking photographs, Péter Zilahy gives fascinating insight into whole other universe behind the Iron Curtain. ‘The Last Window-Giraffe’ is one of the most unusual, beguiling books you will ever read.

'Zilahy's account is often funny, but always raw and direct: a far cry from the nostalgic soup often poured over the spectre of 1968.' —Philip Oltermann, ‘The Independent’


'Not only a great piece of literature but a visual feast as well.' —Julian Evans, ‘BBC’


'In these bittersweet pages you will find the fall of the regimes, and the last twenty years of Eastern Europe.' —Enrico Remmert, ‘Rolling Stone Magazine’


'Originally a poet, Zilahy writes with clarity and economy.' —Tibor Fischer, ‘The Telegraph’


'Zilahy delivers a generational confession…' —‘Times Literary Supplement’


'A remarkable and best-selling author… Peter Zilahy has written a book that almost defies description.' —Ian McMillan, ‘The Verb’, BBC Radio 3 


'Zilahy captures the ‘Groundhog Day’ feeling of the protests in Belgrade... ' —‘Time Out’


'It captures what was a near-universal local experience so well, a transition that is monumental and yet oddly anti-climactic… And it's a very good-looking book, too.' — ‘The Complete Review’

ISBN: 9781843312840

Dimensions: 214mm x 138mm x 26mm

Weight: 454g

130 pages