by Agota Kristof · El Aleph Editores · tapa blanda · ISBN 9788476697108
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This volume collects the three internationally successful novels that have confirmed Agota Kristof's reputation as one of the most provocative exponents of European narrative. With the sordid simplicity of a fairy tale, this trilogy tells the story of two twin brothers, Claus and Lucas, conditioned by an agonizing bond, which also becomes an allegory of the forces that have separated Europe since World War II. The saga begins with El gran cuaderno, where the brothers Claus and Lucas find themselves at the mercy of their grandmother, an illiterate and cruel woman. Far from surrendering to this threat, the twins learn the laws of life, writing and cruelty. Abandoned to their fate, they apply themselves, daily, to writing down their progress in a large notebook. The author constructs an incisive fable about the horrors of war and totalitarianism, but also a great novel of initiation into life. In La prueba the twins separate. One of them crosses the border and the other stays in a country far from the war but dominated by an authoritarian regime. Alone and deprived of a part of himself, Lucas, the one who remains, wants to devote himself to doing good. When Claus returns to his brother he discovers that any act of generosity is conditioned by evil. In La tercera mentira, after the horrors of the war and the black years of the lead regime, the author constructs a story that confronts us with the impossibility of reaching a lasting truth. Agota Kristof's uncompromising style turns this trilogy into a look at the world with the eyes and words of a bad boy.
Ágota Kristóf was a Hungarian writer who lived in Switzerland and wrote in French. Kristóf received the "European prize" from ADELF, the association of Francophone authors, for Le Grand Cahier. It was followed by two sequels which are collectively The Notebook Trilogy. She won the 2001 Gottfried Keller Award in Switzerland and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature in 2008.
