Budapest 1955/56: The twelve-year-old Robi Singer, who was born in a Budapest shelter during a nightly bombing raid, was not circumcised according to Jewish tradition. The symbolic ritual is set to take place shortly before his Bar Mitzva. Robi is disquieted by this fateful day, but he does not manage to circumvent the little procedure. And he is plagued by other woes: He is called “Wobble” in school because he is chubby, he is suspicious of his mother’s new boyfriend, and his beloved grandmother suffers from a heart attack. Moreover, there is a girl, Miriam, the daughter of the police chief, who catapults him into a seesaw state of emotions, something that poets might call love. With lots of warmth and a deep sense of empathy, György Dalos gives us a glimpse into the mind of a young boy on the eve of the Hungarian uprising.

György Dalos

György Dalos was born in 1943 in Budapest and now lives as a freelance writer in Berlin. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2000 Presidential Global Medal of the Republic of Hungarz and the 2010 Liepzig Book Award for European Understanding. Rotbuch has also published his works "The Lady of the Land" (1979, "1985" (1982), "Short Training, Long March" (1985), the story "Balaton Brigade" (2006), the novels "Jugendstil" (2007) and "Der Fall des Ökonomen" (2012).