I Don't Care

Ágota Kristóf

Here, in English at last, is a collection of Ágota Kristóf's short - sometimes very short - stories, which she selected herself, translated by the peerless Chris Andrews. Written immediately before her masterful trilogy ( The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie ), Kristof's short fictions oscillate between parable, surrealist anecdotes, and stories animated by a realism stripped to the bone, often returning to the theme of exile: the twin impossibilities of returning home and of reconstructing home elsewhere.
The world of the book has very hard edges: cruelty is almost omnipresent, peace and consolation are scarce. Austere and minimalist, but with a poetic force that shifts the walls in the reader's mind, Kristof's penetrating short fictions make for extraordinary and essential reading.