Attila F. Balázs
Trans. by Adrian George Sahlean

Hungarian-born poet, novelist and publisher Attila F. Balázs has written a sensuous and subtle novel that is imbued with a transcendent savagery. Casanova is the most notorious lover in history, and his story is the transformation of a man into myth, a lover of women into iconic seducer, and of flesh into history. Casanova’s Metamorphosis offers a glimpse into this complex peronality, who was both the Venetian librarian who penned Histoire de la vie and the charming seducer, both a man and a universal symbol. Casanova seeks liberation through sublime existence, sometimes sinner, sometimes saint, capricious and shifting like the self reflected in a room full of mirrors. Translated from the Romanian, Casanova’s Metamorphosis is a lyric masterwork, and the transformation, as in Ovid, is alchemical. It is rooted in the instinct towards love to which we all owe our being.

Attila F. Balázs, Hungarian writer, poet, literary translator and publisher, was born in Transylvania in 1954. In 1994 he established the publishing house AB-ART, where he is the company director. He is the editor of the literary magazine Poesis International and the general editor of the literary journal Szőrös Kő. He has received several literary awards, including the literary translator award of the Romanian Writers’ Association, and Lucian Blaga award in 2011. He is member of Slovakian, Hungarian and Romanian writers’ organisations.