About the Author

Noemi Szecsi is at the heart of the new generation of Hungarian authors. In 2009 she won the European Union Prize for Literature. The Finno-Ugrian Vampire, her first novel translated into English, was selected for European Literature Night 2012.

Reviews

Most innovative, trenchant vampire tale...It's her [Jerne] voice - misogynistic, wry, astute, and unfailingly deadpan - that keeps us rapidly turning pages even as we savor every sentence...top of your 'must-read' list. (Michael A. Morrison, World Literature Today) Skilful and entertaining translation...amusing postmodernist farce. (Zsuzsanna Varga, The Times Literary Supplement) Clever satire on the whole notion of Hungarian-ness, nationalism and the stereotypes of Eastern Europe...played for laughs. (Tibor Fischer, Saturday Guardian) Entertaining, sly commentary on Hungary...enjoyable literary-vampiric romp. (M.A.Orthofer, Complete Review) Clever and witty...Vampy Grandma is a triumph. (Caroline Sanderson, Bookoxygen) Very funny...The book is witty and bleak, and in the first half in particular it's lightly drawn together. The second part is more absurd and defiant in its refusal to become what readers might expect. (For Books' Sake) Textured with a witty and ironic language, the novel takes no prisoners. (Bookgeeks) A fascinating read, very accessible and entertaining, sometimes funny, sometimes sad. Grandma is one of the most original characters I've come across for a long time. (A Discount Ticket to Everywhere)

Jerne V. Ampere comes from a long line of vampires. Ambivalent about her heritage, she mimics ordinariness, working at a dead-end publishing job while writing a children's book that her editor insists cannot be published in its current gory form. In contrast, Jerne's centuries-old grandmother revels in vampirism, extending her abnormal youthfulness with a succession of victims seduced and discarded in turn. Jerne slowly accepts her vampiric self, encouraged by her grandmother but oddly reluctant to mature, and takes and loses lovers both male and female ("since women are in any case objects of desire and it is easier to go for something that is the way of the world") as she metamorphoses. Sherwood's translation is noteworthy-skillful but unobtrusive. Lauded in Szecsi's native Hungary and popular in Europe, this tale of an awkward vampire amuses; the disaffected protagonist and the inherent absurdity of vampires in a mundane setting provide a looking glass with which to examine modern life. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.