Leni cries

Before writing comes the non-writing - the engagement with reality, which for Péter Nádas encompasses many districts, spaces, and dimensions. Without daily immersing himself in everything that presses upon his consciousness, from dreams, everyday observations, and aesthetic experiences to disturbing news, he could not begin. This indispensable exercise has produced, alongside his masterpieces of narrative art, reflections on art and literature as well as major essays in which Nádas illuminates historical upheavals and the abysses of humanity. "Leni weint" gathers the most important of these essays from the years 1989 to 2014 - a quarter-century that began with a political breakthrough into freedom and ended with a regression into aggressive populism.