Magda Szabo: "The Door"

     No--I had never heard of her either.


      Magda Szabo (1917--20007) was a prize-winning Hungarian writer, starting with two volumes of poetry in 1947, and moving on to write a series of novels, short stories, children's stories, plays, and non-fiction, including a tribute to her husband, Tibor Szobotka who translated Tolkien and Galsworthy.
     "The Door", which is published by The New York Review of Books, has been translated by Len Rix, and he received the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation prize for his translation. There is an introduction by Ali Smith, in which she notes that, "after finishing this compelling, funny, and horrifying novel the reader will want to find every one of her other novels." I expect that is impossible as I doubt if they have all been translated.
      The novel--is it autobiographical?--has a first person narrator, a writer, and I believe it is only well near the end of the book that we learn her name is Magda.  The novel is about her intense but very rocky relationship with Emerence, an elderly woman who does domestic work for her and other neighbors on the street. She sweeps the snow and the leaves. She brings food to the sick. No-one has ever seen the inside of her apartment. If she entertains neighbors, or her nephew, or the police chief, she does so on her porch. She always wears a headscarf. She is contemptuous of religion for what seems an absurd and petty reason. (Like the author, the narrator is a devout Christian, for which Emerence mocks her) The narrator sees her as a noble and mythological figure, and slowly she begins to find out bits about her past--but what should she believe? Did she steal from a jewish family who fled, or did she rescue them? Did she have an illegitimate child or did she adopt one? She hid and nursed both German and Russian soldiers and informers under different regimes. She gave help where needed, no matter who it was that needed help.
The crisis that leads to the final, agonizing ending is when Emerence falls sick and refuses to open her door, and the neighbors have to figure out a way to rescue her.
There was a glowing review in the New York Times.
Fascinating novel... though it may be a bit difficult to get your hands on a copy. The DC Public Library had one, and I expect other libraries will have it too.