Fever at dawn
By: Péter Gárdos ; translated from the Hungarian by Elizabeth Szász
Contributors: Szász, Liz, translator
Edition: First U.S. edition.
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 232
ISBN-13: 9780544769793
Copyright date: 2016
Subjects: Social life and customs; Hungarian Jews; Holocaust survivors; Fiction
Work titles: Hajnali láz
Description: July 1945. Miklos is a twenty-five-year-old Hungarian who has survived the camps and has been brought to Sweden to convalesce. His doctor has just given him a death sentence: his lungs are filled with fluid and in six months he will be gone. But Miklos has other plans. He didn't survive the war only to drown from within, and so he wages war on his own fate. He acquires the names of the 117 Hungarian women also recovering in Sweden, and he writes a letter to each of them in his beautiful cursive hand. One of these women, he is sure, will become his wife. In another part of the country, Lili reads his letter and decides to write back. For the next few months, the two engage in a funny, absurd, hopeful epistolary dance. Eventually, they find a way to meet. Based on the true story of Péter Gárdos's parents.
Notes: Translation from Hungarian of: Hajnali láz.