Description
"Lazar is an exquisite and masterly pronouncement that a gifted young writer walks among us" Patti Smith
"A truly great writer steps onto the stage" Daniel Kehlmann
"Propulsive, twisting and spell-binding. Lazar is a bold, intricate accomplishment" Lucy Steeds
The snow of the dying century still lay on the edge of the dark forest when Lajos von Lazar, the translucent child with water-blue eyes, first glimpsed the man he would believe to be his father for his whole life and beyond.
Lajos von Lazar is brought into this world with the dawn of the new century, and his birth is both a miracle and a curse, his true patrimony a secret he will never know. The Lazars have ruled their Hungarian lands for generations. In their ancient castle by the edge of a dark forest that compels all who enter it to madness, they succumb to every vice and live only to satiate their desires. But the old order is crumbling, and the days of the Hapsburg Monarchy are numbered.
When Lajos inherits, they at last have a baron who can reignite the old splendours, but not even his abilities are proof against the ravages of war and occupation. It will fall to his children - a boy who talks to shadows and a girl who eschews her blue blood - to find a way to stand against oppression and take the first faltering steps towards freedom.
A sweeping epic, taking the reader from the beginning of the twentieth century to the Hungarian National Uprising of 1956, Lazar would be a phenomenal achievement for a writer of any age. With its air of timeless wisdom, it reads like rediscovered classic, making it all the more remarkable that it was written when the author was just twenty-one years old.
Translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch
About the Author
Nelio Biedermann, born in 2003, grew up on Lake Zurich. His paternal family is of Hungarian nobility; his grandparents fled to Switzerland in the 1950s. Biedermann studied German and film studies at the University of Zurich. His novel Lazar will be published in more than twenty countries.
Reviews
An astonishing book - a multi-generational family story filled with deeply original characters and gripping scenes, at times realistic, at times disturbingly dreamlike. This novel would be an event in any case. But the fact that its author has only just reached adulthood turns its publication into a thunderclap. A truly great writer steps onto the stage, in full possession of his powers -- Daniel Kehlmann
The new magician . . . A magnificent novel . . . The splendour and misery of an entire era * Die Zeit *
A first-class page-turner . . . the most astonishing discovery of the season * Suddeutsche Zeitung *
A vivid, strange story that sustains its tension * Dazed (Most Anticipated Novels of 2026) *
Lazar proves worthy of the commotion: a keenly observed work that blends youthful verve with a seasoned wisdom... With Biedermann, fiction becomes the space in which both the vast sweep of history and the intimate, corporeal realities of those living through it can be apprehended, rendering the repetition of tragedy not abstract or statistical, but painfully, vividly human * European Literature Network *
Gothic and fairytale-esque, it's a definite page-turner * Service 95 *
Biedermann not only shows plenty of skill as a novelist, but wisdom well beyond his years. His imaginative capacity and desire to engage with both the discomforts of history and the cornucopia of dead authors who inspired him gives you - at least, it gave me - a cynicism-killing hope for the future of literature. Lazar, above all, shows that the drab realism of too many millennials doesn't cut it for the generation now coming of age. To Gen Z novelists, that style is past its sell-by date. This is the future now. * Telegraph *
Book Information
ISBN 9781529445336
Author Nelio Biedermann
Format Hardback
Page Count 304
Imprint MacLehose Press
Publisher Quercus Publishing
Weight(grams) 497g
Dimensions(mm) 236mm * 158mm * 32mm
