Nelio Biedermann: Lazar | Erfurter Herbstlese

Here is the translation of the text into English:

"This authenticity is one of the great strengths of the novel. The other is its fluid language, saturated with echoes of the great novelists of the 20th century (...)."
Christoph Schröder, SWR Kultur

Everything begins, even the end, when Lajos von Lázár, the blonde child with the aquamarine eyes, is born. His father, the Baron, will never fully trust his son, as if he sensed his secret. With Lajos’s birth in the forest castle, the 20th century begins, one that will forever change the old life of the Lázár barons in southern Hungary. The fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire only initially touches their traditions, but everyone feels the tremors of the times—beautiful Mária as much as the ghostly Uncle Imre. When Lajos takes on his inheritance in the 1920s, the old grandeur seems to bloom once more. But the children Eva and Pista—the one who loves the darkness so much—must experience how totalitarian times cast their heavy shadows, and learn to resist them.

A novel like a world, the overwhelming saga of a family, driven by love and the longing for it, amidst the whirlpools of the 20th century. Gripping and moving, yet full of lightness, full of dreams and secrets, in which the full tragedy and beauty of existence is mirrored. And—whether in the face of historical disasters or beautiful summer days—the eternal question of how one should live.

"The new magician... a magnificent work."
Die Zeit | Favorite Book of the Independents 2025

Nelio Biedermann, born in 2003, grew up by Lake Zurich. His family is of Hungarian noble descent on his father’s side, and his grandparents fled to Switzerland in the 1950s. Biedermann is studying German philology and film studies at the University of Zurich. His novel Lázár will be published in more than twenty countries.

Reading location: Kalif Storch

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