About the Author

Tibor Dery (1894-1977) was born in Budapest. He was imprisoned in 1943 for translating Andre Gide's diary, and after being dispelled from the Communist Party in 1953, began writing satires of the Hungarian regime. A spokesman during the Hungarian Revolt of 1956, Dery was arrested and sentenced to nine years of prison for his writings and political activities. Due to an international outcry, he was released in 1960. George Szirtes was born in Budapest in 1948 and moved to England as a refugee in 1956. He has published several books and won various prizes including the T S Eliot Prize for Reel in 2005. He lives near Norwich with his wife, the painter Clarissa Upchurch. Edward Hyams won the Scott Moncrieff Translation Prize for Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses by Regine Pernoud.

Reviews

Hungarian dissident Tibor Dery's novella has been deservingly rescued from obscurity in a flawless translation by Edward Hyams. While the book is the story of a dog in extraordinarily sustained and focused doggy detail, it also conveys more about the emotional and psychological toll of repression than a dozen history books...Theaccount of Niki's life with its exquisite observations of her behaviour and character is utterly charming yet devoid of sentimentality. One certainly doesn't have to be a dog person to enjoy writing of such precision and beauty. Guardian