political representation, and also by the circumstances of his closer fam ily.The fatherof Dragoman's hero is arrested for unclear reasons and deported to the Danube Delta to work in appalling conditions at the construction of the Danube Canal. This makes the lifeof theyoung boy and his mother very hard indeed, in spite of the fact that the boy's grandfather is an honored veteran of theCommunist Party. In fact,the lastchapter of thebook isa dramatic account of the grandfather's funeral, an event for which theboy's fatheris temporarily released from captivity. While some of thefacts described in the book may be part of Dra goman's own biography, he decries a close autobiographical reading. What is relevant is the mood of thischildhood, with its multination al background clearly indicated by the Romanian as well as Hungar ian names of the hero's playmates and young colleagues. Nobody is relaxed in a society where you have to watch your steps and statements carefully if you want to survive. In school you have to dissimulate to satisfy your teachers' demands, but you also have towatch out at the playground and make tactical compromises or suffer for the con sequences of your determination not togive up your integrity. The real secret of Dragoman lies, however, not so much in his themebut in thenature ofhis prose. He tellshis storieswith extreme flu ency, without trying to be overtly analytical. In fact, he tries to relate his experiences in the voice of his young hero, not so much evaluating as perceiving events in his home and in theoutside world. There is a freshness or, if you like, innocence in his narrative, which occasional ly takes on dramatic overtones?it seduces the reader, who becomes profoundly interested in the every day experiences of this young boy from Transylvania. If the English translation of Gy?rgy Dragoman's book isas good as his original prose, I can foresee a great literary career for thischroniclerof the recentpast of Central-East Europe. GeorgeG?m?ri London Gy?rgyDragoman. The White King. Paul Olchvary, tr. New York. Houghton Mifflin. 2008. 263 pages. $24. isbn978 0-618-94517-7 Gy?rgy Dragoman's extraordinary novel, The White King, fits into a distinguished Hungarian literary tradition: narratives about children and young adults thatcapture both the innocence of childhood and the experience of the mature author. Outstanding Hungarian fiction about adolescents ismade memora ble by their authors' almost uncanny identification with their youthful heroes and their ability to create credible child narrators. Dragoman's hero is Djata, an eleven-year-old boy living in an unnamed Eastern European commu nist dictatorship. Internal evidence (both Romanian and Hungarian names are used, for example) and certain facts in the author's biog raphymake it clear thatwe are in Romania. For all we know, it could be thegrim early 1950s,but thestory actually takesplace in the mid-1980s (there isa referenceto theChernobyl catastrophe). By then there were few Stalinist police states leftinEastern Europe; Ceau?escu's Romania was one of them. Djata is very much a boy: he is into games, sports, and pranks. While he is also cautious and studi ous?more of a nerd than a jock? when in troublehe can fend for him self. The long, breathless sentences E of his narrative, rendered inEnglish E with remarkable empathy and dex- E terityby Paul Olchvary, follow the E twistsand turnsof a child's thought E patterns, theups and downs of his E emotional states, and let loose a proE fusion of crisp,precise details about E his favorite activities and pastimes. E Yet Djata is also different. He thinks = more and sees more. He would like E to believe thathis father is spend- E ing time in a "research station by E the sea," but knows that in facthe E is in a labor camp. He also knows E that his mother is someone who E was not broken by the "system" E but has remained brave and pasE sionate, willing to do anything to E get her husband back and protect E her son. The task is daunting, for E theyare surrounded by crazies and E lowlifes: brutish state securitymen, E...