Ágota Kristóf

Ágota Kristóf was born in Csikvánd, Hungary, in 1935. Aged twenty-one, Kristóf and her husband and four-month-old daughter fled the Soviet repression of the Hungarian Uprising to Austria and were resettled in French-speaking Switzerland. Working in a factory, Kristóf slowly learned the language of her adopted country. Her first novel, The Notebook (1986), won the European Prize for French literature and was translated into forty languages. Her first novel, The Notebook (1986), won the European Prize for French literature and was translated into forty languages. The Proof (1988) and The Third Lie (1991) complete the trilogy. Kristóf ’s other work includes the novella Yesterday (1995), the short story collection I Don’t Care (2005), as well as plays. She died in 2011.