An international sensation, this startling and heartbreaking debut introduces us to precocious eleven-year-old Djata, whose life in the totalitaria...
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Dec 11, 2011
Suvi
rated it: 
The stream of consciousness writing didn't add anything to the story, it could have done without it. Also, the characters felt to me like mere sketches without being an intense part of the little stories. Not very touching and sometimes only hints at what life was like in a world like this.
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Jan 20, 2011
Kevin
rated it: 
Pretty good. More a collection of stories than a novel, although that may be splitting hairs. A boy growing up in maybe Romania or Hungary in the 1980s. His father has been sent off to a work camp and he learns to live with that uncertainty and his mother’s depression and defiance. All I can say is, I’m glad it wasn’t me, for any number of reasons, but mainly the violence. Teachers, coaches, random adults all seemed to take out their frustration and impotence in the form of violence against
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Aug 01, 2011
This book is up there on my list and probably on the list of Hungarian novels in the recent decades.
Besides the historical context and the insights of the life in the eighties in Transylvania, Romania, this story reveals the life of a boy full of thrill, excitement, adventure, curiosity, dedication, experience and love to his family. Love to his father and to his mother.
Although I don't wish the same life for my boys, I wonder if in our age they have thrill ,which a boy need or at least the one More...
Besides the historical context and the insights of the life in the eighties in Transylvania, Romania, this story reveals the life of a boy full of thrill, excitement, adventure, curiosity, dedication, experience and love to his family. Love to his father and to his mother.
Although I don't wish the same life for my boys, I wonder if in our age they have thrill ,which a boy need or at least the one More...
Apr 21, 2010
Daisy
rated it: 
Pretty tragic. A bunch of ruined people.
In that breathless, kind of rushed voice of a child telling a story, and then and then and then, having to gulp for air to continue his run-on sentences... Coming of age, sure, that's the same in the books we read and it's always different too. This one is in Romania in the Ceausescu era. And this is one dark, gray story. A boy aching for his absent (stolen) father. Almost all the other male authority figures in the book are bullies. Or More...
In that breathless, kind of rushed voice of a child telling a story, and then and then and then, having to gulp for air to continue his run-on sentences... Coming of age, sure, that's the same in the books we read and it's always different too. This one is in Romania in the Ceausescu era. And this is one dark, gray story. A boy aching for his absent (stolen) father. Almost all the other male authority figures in the book are bullies. Or More...
Jan 29, 2012
Cmorice
rated it:
Un garçon de onze ans voit son père partir, encadré par des étrangers. Nous sommes en Roumanie, au milieu des années quatre-vingt, et très vite il devient évident que le père du narrateur a été déporté en tant qu'opposant au régime. Les jours passent, sans la moindre nouvelle de lui. En attendant, le garçon s'occupe tendrement de sa mère qui ne lui dit rien, et il essaie de remplacer son père. Mais, il subit aussi les vexations de ceux qui savent et doit faire face à un jeu pervers d'humiliation
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Jun 28, 2010
Núria
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György Dragomán nació en Rumanía el 1973, en una familia perteneciente a la minoría húngara establecida en este país. Actualmente vive en Budapest y el 2005 publicó “El rey blanco”, que ganó el premio Sándor Márai y que ha sido traducida a más de veinte idiomas. Más que una novela compacta es un conjunto de relatos cortos que retratan varios episodios de la vida de un niño de once años llamado Djata. Cuando el libro empieza, ya hace algunos meses que la policía secreta ha arrestado a su padre. T
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Feb 28, 2010
Angela
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The White King, a short novel illuminating two years of preteen narrator Djata's life under an unnamed regime strongly resembling Ceausescu's Romania, is a sort of Lord of the Flies meets Viktor Pelevin. Most of the characters are schoolboys, but their universe is a microcosm of the authoritarian communist world around them, and this adult world spills into and informs every aspect of their lives. Along the way, Djata meets a number of fascinating characters living on the margins of this world i
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Feb 28, 2010
Margot
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This novel is comprised of a series of scenes/short stories that encapsulate two years in the life of Djata, an adolescent growing up in a mysterious land based on 1980s Romania. In this totalitarian state, Djata's father is taken from his family and sent to work digging at the Danube for being a traitor to the Party. Djata goes about his business as a young boy, making trouble with his friends, getting into fights and sneaking into forbidden areas. But the spectre of Djata's missing father hang
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Feb 28, 2010
Michael
rated it:
I enjoyed this collection of short stories that have been loosely bound into a novel. The depictions of communist era Romania are both heart-breaking and hysterical at the same time. The way the people, and particularly kids cope with an oppresive regime full of reeducation camps and secret police is interesting.
Some very interesting curses too - inspirational even, perhaps I'll even try to work some of them into my daily life.
I also always thought gymnastics was the na More...
Some very interesting curses too - inspirational even, perhaps I'll even try to work some of them into my daily life.
I also always thought gymnastics was the na More...
Apr 14, 2009
sisterimapoet
rated it:
Due to life interruptions it took me a long time to read this book, which often disrupts the flow of a novel. But luckily Dragoman uses an interesting form where each chapter is a self-contained event - almost like a short story. They build to a whole, and sometimes even recap a tiny bit as if to suggest the reader hasn't read all of them. This was quirky but effective.
It's not the kind of setting I would usually choose to read about - but seen through the eyes of a child it took More...
It's not the kind of setting I would usually choose to read about - but seen through the eyes of a child it took More...
Jul 30, 2011
Tracy
rated it:
Definitely worth a read if you're interested in the vicarious experience of being a Hungarian national in Transylvania in the 80s at the height of the Party's power. It's all from a twelve year old boy's perspective post his father being taken away to a reeducation camp.
Jul 27, 2011
Anssi
rated it:
Written in a very unusual style, which you get used to quite quickly though. The description of a young boy's life in this (unknown?) communist country was very interesting for the most part, but some of the stories were a bit odd. And yes, there are some pretty violent and shocking moments.
Aug 09, 2011
Brett
rated it:
A wonderful novel - basically a series of linked short stories - about growing up in Romania in the '80s. Highly recommended. Dragoman is definitely a writer to watch!
Dec 07, 2008
Stephanie
rated it:
Interesting read on what life was like in Romania in the 80's. Hard-scrabble and violent imagery dominate, but I found it highly readable.
Mar 24, 2009
Jaime
rated it:
This book was cool. It was written with a lot of run-on sentences, which made my mind go that way.
Mar 14, 2010
Bettie
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Feb 28, 2010
CJ
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This book was incredibly painful to read. The author now lives in Hungary, but grew up in Romania in the 1980s. I can't even imagine what that was like - even after reading this book. There were moments of absolute depravity (a gang of kids with bricks in plastic bags) interspersed with moments of pure joy (a construction worker with a roomful of songbirds). I don't know why I finished it. I wanted to stop many times, I couldn't. Beautifully written (even through the translation).
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Oct 27, 2008
Charlaralotte
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Not a book that's easily read in one sitting. Each chapter is a very intense short story unto itself. Excellent stream of consciousness writing. Excellent descriptions and dialogue. What at first seems like a random collection of boy-growing-up stories coalesces into a frighteningly realistic portrait of life in a Soviet country. The violence of the children & the adults as they deal with misinformation, manipulation, and loss of control over their own lives is harrowing.
Mar 06, 2010
Robyn
rated it:
Not really sure what to think of this book. I don't know if it was the different sentance and paragraph structure as a result of direct translation, or that the story didn't seem to flow, or have a clear conclusion, but it wasn't great. I did enjoy, and always do enjoy, reading about what it was like for this character to grow up in socialist Hungary, but the story didn't grip me, or particularly touch me.
Feb 28, 2010
Tyler
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My adviser here is married to this dude, and there is a very good chance that I will get to watch Hungarian children's television at their apartment this semester. I also spent a considerable amount of my food stipend buying an hardcover copy of this imported from England. Oops.
Jan 03, 2012
Rick K.
rated it:
9/10. The war scene is awesome, and reminded me of the stories told by the kids counselor in one of Salinger's '9 stories'.
May 21, 2008
Samantha
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Feb 05, 2012
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