The Third Tower is a precious collection of Antal Szerb`s lyrical, intelligent, and typically ironic travel notes, made during journeys through Italy in 1936, as the rise of Fascism marks the fall of the Europe of old—conveying a sense of both hopeful resolve and philosophical exhaustion.

Author

Antal Szerb was born in Budapest in 1901. Though of Jewish descent, he was baptised at an early age and remained a lifelong Catholic. He rapidly established himself as a formidable scholar, through studies of Ibsen and Blake and histories of English, Hungarian and world literature. He was a prolific essayist and reviewer, ranging across all the major European languages. Debarred by successive Jewish laws from working in a university, he was subjected to increasing persecution, and finally murdered in a forced labour camp in 1945. Pushkin Press publishes his novels The Pendragon Legend, Oliver VII and his masterpiece Journey by Moonlight, as well as the historical study The Queen’s Necklace and Love in a Bottle and Other Stories.

Len Rix was born in Zimbabwe and now lives in Cambridge. He is the translator of all Szerb’s work published in English, and in 2006 he was awarded the Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize.