Sacvan Bercovitch, Harvard University: "A vivid, poignant, unforgettable panorama of Central Europe in the mid-1990's. Michael Blumenthal, a leading American poet and novelist, has written a brilliant series of sketches, lyrical, incisive, empathetic, funny, and wise--at once deeply personal and full of insight--about a fascinating world in transition from a haunted and haunting past to the modern Hustle."

Phillip Lopate, The Art of the Personal Essay: "It's a delight to listen to the voice of Michael Blumenthal in these essays: He is such an astute observer, honest and wry commentator, and reliable companion. His bi-focaled vision of Hungary and America is indeed eye-opening. A satisfying collection."

Tibor Frank, Director, American Studies Center, Eötvös Lorànd University, Budapest: "Michael Blumenthal went to Hungary almost by chance and now, after several years, he seems to have been almost fatally attracted to her. From the forty essays of this book Budapest emerges not as a casual flirt of a foreigner but more like a major and encompassing love affair. The passionate yet tender evocation of a Central Europe that perhaps only the alien poet can see so clearly elevates these pieces from journalism into poetry. The Hungary of the early 1990s is captured here with the self-invented nostalgia of someone who suddenly realizes that he has found his home there, as have so many American authors in great European cities, from Paris to Berlin and London to Rome. Budapest appears in Blumenthal's mirror as beautiful and dirty, challenging and backward, politicized and poetic, a thing of the past and, increasingly, of the present. Published in book format for the first time, Blumenthal's essays present a reemerging, world-class city and its great culture in an unusual, delicate form. A must for all who have enough of cliches on 'Eastern' Europe."

Eva Hoffman, Exit into History: "In these reflections on exile, literature, social phenomena and daily life, Michael Blumenthal uses his exceptional powers of observation to look at Central Europe from an America an perspective, and re-view America from a Hungarian vantage point. Mr. Blumenthal has a poet's eye for the telling detail, an expatriate's appreciation for cultural paradox, and the passion to see beyond both, to the salient heart of human and political dilemmas. This is a wise, witty book that, in the guise of occasional essays, throws an unexpected light on many important issues today."

Michael Blumenthal is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently The Wages of Goodness  (1992), and the novel Weinstock Among the Dying, co-winner of Hadassah Magazine's 1994 Harold U. Ribelow Prize for Fiction. From 1992-1996, he was Senior Fulbright Lecturer in American Literature in Budapest, as well as an editor at the Central European University Press, and, from 1996 to 1997, taught at the University of Haifa in Israel. A former lawyer, Guggenheim Fellow and Director of Creative Writing at Harvard, he has been Distinguished Poet-in-Residence at the University of Louisville and Boise State University, and is currently Visiting Professor of English at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos. He lives in Austin with his wife and son.

Ordering Information

Michael Blumenthal
When History Enters the House
Pleasure Boat Studio 1998
ISBN 0-91651413-2-2
Trade Paper $15.00

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