The Ninth

by Ferenc Barnás

Translated from the original Hungarian

by Paul Olchváry

Set in a sleepy village north of Budapest in 1968, this touching, unsettling novel paints a richly wrought portrait of mid-twentieth-century Hungary. The narrator is the ninth child of a family distinguished by its size, poverty, faith, and abundance of physical and psychological disabilities. His confusion is exacerbated by the strict, secretive Catholic household his parents keep in the face of a Communist system. These dual oppressions propel him toward an inevitable realization of his guilt and desire that speaks to his struggle with a fateful, seamless beauty.

Ferenc Barnás (b.1959) is an acclaimed Hungarian novelist whose books include The Parasite and Bagatell. He is the recipient of two of Hungary’s highest literary honors: the Sándor Márai Prize (2001) and the Tibor Déry Prize (2006).