Adam Biro

Adam Biro,the author of One Must Also Be Hungarian left Hungary at the age of 15 during the midst of Hungarian Revolution of 1956 but always remained faithful to his Hungarian heritage. This book is a homage to his family; discussing his parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents and even great grandparents. It starts off slowly because he begins with his great grandparents and not knowing them personally the discussion feels sketchy and incomplete. But as the book progresses and we learn about his parents the book at times becomes quite touching. The last chapter covering the demise of his father from the strong intelligent man he greatly admired into a senile and decrepit old man of 95 is especially powerful.… (altro)

I've never heard of this author before, nor have I ever read Jewish jokes that were quite like these. Adam Biro was born in Hungary, but is now living as an author in Frances. He is founder of the art book publishing house Biro Éditeur in Paris. All of the Jewish jokes here are created as literature, each crafted carefully around what he knows of Jewish life from his own background. They never sound like Jewish jokes until they get to the punch line. You'll then recognize them for what they are. This is an intriguing, engaging, sometimes sad, and mostly funny book. It's short enough to read quickly, or, alternatively, it's good for carrying around for those times you'd like to pop quickly in and out of a book. Read it. It's really, really good.… (altro)

Perhaps one must also be Hungarian to truly understand Hungarian literature. Having read several books over the past eleven weeks from the pen of more than a half dozen different Hungarian authors whose work spans the era from the ebbing of the Austro-Hungarian empire at the end of the nineteenth century to the fall of Communism near the end of the twentieth century I cannot claim to have developed an understanding of the literature or the culture. But I have developed an appreciation for their literature -- both fiction and memoir. Adam Biro's own memoir, One Must Also Be Hungarian, displaying his family and ancestors, and more poetically titled Les Ancetres d'Ulysse in the original French, is a memorable collection of portraits of his family. Each portrait within it is like a snapshot capturing features of personality and character, illuminated by memories and episodes from family history and the author's own experience. His use of family photographs enhances the personal nature of the story by providing images to set beside his elegant but simple prose. While the elan and humor of his family is clearly delineated there remains an overarching melancholy tinged with sadness for those relatives whose lives were ended suddenly, sometimes due to the violence and hatred that swept Europe in the twentieth century. He shares the glories of Hungarians both within and outside of his family that permeate the zeitgeist of their existence. The stories of success as with Uncle Eugene Perlmuth and the tragic life of the artist, Uncle Jozsi, are just two of the portraits that moved me the most. Both the glories and the sadness are conflated to create an overall image that I found -- the humanity of the whole.… (altro)