A page-turning dystopian classic that stands alongside Brave New World and Gulliver’s Travels

“[A] dystopian cult classic... . Gulliver washes up on the island of Kazohinia, which is populated by bizarre inhabitants ... whose sense of morality and society force [him] to reconsider his own understanding of life, love, and death.” —Publishers Weekly

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PRAISE

“Highly entertaining... . Readers familiar with the classic Swift satire will find much to admire here, but those unfamiliar with Gulliver’s Travels should still have a good time.” —Booklist

“A satire on our world of power politics…. Clever and inventive.” ⎯Wall Street Journal

ABOUT THE BOOK

Voyage to Kazohinia is a tour de force of twentieth-century literature. It is more than a novel; it is a novel of ideas. Sándor Szathmári’s comical tale, first published in Budapest in 1941 and soon published in Paris in the author’s own Esperanto translation, chronicles the travels of a modern Gulliver on the eve of World War II. The shipwrecked English ship’s surgeon finds himself on an unknown island whose inhabitants, the Hins, live a technologically advanced existence without emotions, desires, arts, money, or politics. Soon unhappy amid this bleak perfection, Gulliver asks to be admitted to the closed settlement of the Behins, beings with souls and atavistic human traits. He has seen nothing yet. A massively entertaining mix of satire and science fiction, Voyage to Kazohinia has seen half a dozen editions in Hungary in the seventy years since its original publication and remains the country’s most popular cult classic.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sándor Szathmári (1897–1974) was among the most extraordinary and elusive figures in twentieth-century Hungarian literature. The author of two published novels and several story collections in his native tongue, he is best known for Voyage to Kazohina—which, titled Kazohinia on most editions in Hungary, has been treasured by generations of readers. A central figure in Hungary's Esperanto movement for decades, Szathmári published his writings—including, most famously, Voyage to Kazohinia—in his own Esperanto-language editions, ensuring him a measure of international recognition and literary freedom during the communist era.