January 3, 1985. The announcement comes over the tele-

screen: Big Brother is dead. His empire, Oceania, has been

defeated in a disastrous air battle and is no more. Only two

great powers remain: Eurasia and Eastasia. Behind the scenes

Big Sister (Big Brother s widow) struggles with the Thought

Police and the army for power, while elsewhere the winds of

reform sweep through the remnants of Oceania.

Everywhere, under the bitingly humorous hand of Gy6rgy

Dalos, George Orwell s chilling world of 1984 seems to be experi-

encing a thaw, as Orwell s tortured lovers Smith and Julia,

O Brien the Thought Policeman, Ampleforth the hack poet,

and Syme the cynical philologist come alive again. However,

when the thaw becomes a revolution as the proles get involved,

the now-friendly neighboring empire Eurasia steps in to ~restore

orded

If this scenario reminds you of anything, that s no surprise.

Gyorgy Dalos is a child of post-Stalinist Hungary, and no one

could have been better placed to write such an incredibly in-

genious successor to Orwelrs prophetic novel of the cold war,

a hilarious international roman E clef f~ for today s world.

Gy6rgy Dalos, born in Hungary in 1943, studied at Moscow

University from 1962 to 1967. He was put on trial in his own

country in 1968 for "Maoist" activity, expelled from the

Hungarian Communist Party, dismissed from work, and put

under police surveillance. He makes his living as a translator and

also has published a collection of his poems. Just as Orwell s orig-

inal 1984 could not be published in Hungary, so this book could

not. It has come out, however, in German, French, and EngEsh

editions.

道洛什•久爾吉（Dalos György）：匈牙利著名作傢，曆史學傢。1943年齣生於布達佩斯一個猶太傢庭，60年代赴莫斯科研讀曆史，1968年因“毛派分子案”被禁止發錶作品長達19年，70年代參加匈牙利民主化運動，80年代以後在不來梅、維也納和柏林等地從事文化、新聞與齣版工作，現任柏林匈牙利文化研究所所長，居住於柏林。

由於其獨特閱曆，寫作主題幾乎都聚焦於冷戰時期的東歐社會，特彆是東歐知識分子的精神生活，代錶作是《1985》和《來自未來的客人：安娜•阿赫瑪托娃和以賽亞•伯林》。小說《1985》寫於1981年，1982年在西柏林齣版，引起轟動，隨後齣版的英法美日各版本反響巨大，1990年纔在匈牙利正式齣版。

曾獲得多項大奬，如2000年的匈牙利共和國總統金奬，2006年匈牙利共和國十字勛章。2010年榮獲萊比锡書展奬，被錶彰為“最能代錶歐洲精神曆史的中歐人”。