A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year

Parallel Stories is a novel of extraordinary scope and depth, a masterwork that traces the fate of myriad Europeans―Hungarians, Jews, Germans, Gypsies―across the treacherous years of the mid–twentieth century. Three unusual men are at the heart of the novel: Hans von Wolkenstein, whose German mother has ties to the fascist-Nazi collaboration of the 1940s; Ágost Lippay Lehr, whose influential father has served Hungary's different political regimes for decades; and András Rott, who has his own dark record of mysterious activities abroad. Nádas weaves the social and political circumstances of their lives into a magnificent tapestry, aligning the uncanny parallels that link them across time and space.

Fifteen years in the writing, and four in the translating, Parallel Stories is Péter Nádas's masterpiece―a daring and momentous novel from one of the great writers of our time.