Novel set in USA, VIETNAM and JAPAN
Those Absent on the Great Hungarian Plain

Location(s): Hungary
Genre(s): Autobiography/Memoirs, Nonfiction, Travelogue
Era(s): History to present day
When Jill Culiner arrived on the Great Hungarian Plain, she was seeking a trace of the lost Jewish rural community. She discovered a country shaped by early tribal conquerors and foreign domination.
Certainly, nothing is ever what it seems; there are grim secrets to be uncovered, and history with its pogroms, violence, and hatred of ‘the other’ is anything but laudable. But if we are appalled by human behaviour, there is also humour in our contradictions.
Thirsty for juicy gossip, Culiner offers a droll, often satirical, portrait of small-town life. Local residents share dreams, romances, and suspicion. Black marketeers, peasants, the Roma, former nobles, and party girls, rub shoulders with lapsed communists and elderly members of the Hitler Youth movement. And ever hidden in deep shadow, is the story of the vanished Jews.
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