The Stuffed Barbarian – Tilia Cultural Agency ©

Original title: Kitömött barbár

Title in English: The Stuffed Barbarian

Year of publication: 2014

Publisher: Kalligram

Number of pages: 448

Rights sold: Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Serbia

The novel is based on real people: it tells the story of the friendship between Ferenc Kazinczy, a Hungarian writer, and Angelo Soliman. Sophie Török, Kazinczy’s wife, is the principle narrator. At the centre of the triangle in the story is the figure of the Freemason Soliman, an African at the Viennese Court, who really was stuffed following his death and put on display in a museum. The climax is the historically implausible scene where Kazincy is taken from his prison in 1796 to Vienna, where he is told that he has inherited Angelo’s Black skin, but he renounces this inheritance at the request of the Court. He then has to watch the body being skinned and embalmed. This is the story that – according to this fictional interpretation – Ferenc was never able to tell at any point in his life, until 1831 when he’s suffering from cholera and reveals his great secret to his wife before asking her to strangle him.

The work deals with the cultural curiosity of Soliman’s case wonderfully. His unusual figure represented a challenge to social, power, and sexual relations at the time. He was extremely learned and was yet at the mercy of his aristocratic masters, women, and the whole world surrounding him. The Viennese think of the African Soliman as a barbarian, just like the Hungarian Kazinczy. Kazinczy, meanwhile, thinks of his ill-educated wife as being a barbarian. But in the end, it’s still his wife who writes this novel, in which the destinies of the three characters become intertwined.

The action is set during the reign of Francis I (1792–1835), Emperor of Austria, at a time when the illusions of the Enlightenment are over, having been replaced with repression. Cosmopolitanism is defeated by provincialism, and progress by the backwardness of rural Hungary. The narrative is very powerful in its description of physical and sensual experiences. The scene where Angelo is stuffed is the stuff of baited breath.