Pseudo children’s novel about dictatorship

György Dragomán: A fehér király (The white king)

Abstract

Although A fehér király (The white king) was not György Dragomán’s first novel, he indispu-tably tore – after foreign success! – into domestic literary life with it. The study partly re-views the virtues of the book – from the particular homodiegetic narration to the „partly faithful to history” background characteristic of postmodern –, putting particular emphasis on the presentation of linguistic peculiarities. It does it with the exposition of the reception and the review of the critical reception of the book. At the same time, it tries to justify sta-tements which might seem bold at first reading, namely that Dragomán’s book may be in-terpreted as a picaresque and a pseudo children’s novel as well. Meanwhile it makes inevi-table comparisons with the author’s later volume entitled Máglya (Stake), which is a „coun-terpart” of Dzsata’s story in several respects.