8.2 /10 1 Votes
Original title Az ajtó Originally published 1987 Original language Hungarian Genre Novel | 4.1/5 Goodreads Pages 272 pp Translator Len Rix Country Hungary | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Publisher East European Monographs/Harvill Secker Publication date 15 February 1995 / 20 October 2005 Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback) ISBN 0-88033-304-9 (USA)
ISBN 1-84343-193-9 (UK) Novels Journey by Moonlight, The Pendragon Legend, St Peter's Umbrella, Be Faithful Unto Death, A High Wind in Jamaica | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Door is a novel by Hungarian writer Magda Szabó (1917–2007). The novel concerns the developing relationship between a young Hungarian writer and her housecleaner, and is partly autobiographical.
The Door was originally published in Hungary in 1987, and translated into English in 1995 by Stefan Draughon for American publication, and again in 2005 by Len Rix for British publication. Rix's translation won the 2006 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, and was short-listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Rix's translation was republished in 2015 by New York Review Books Classics.
A film based on the novel, directed by István Szabó, was released in March 2012.
Plot
A childless woman writer, Magda, hires an older housekeeper, Emerence, who behaves oddly, but eventually they develop a kind of friendship.