The Hangman's House

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Tompa Andrea's first novel evokes the stifling world of a not-so-distant shared past through the story of a narrator growing up in the Romanian dictatorship of the 1980s and their family. "This novel chronicles the everyday life of Cluj in the 1980s. It cannot be merely a rural testimony valid for a narrow area, as it is a harsh critique of unquestioning subservience that avoids thought, a painful, witty, and utterly natural criticism. This critical spirit, this rebellion against resignation, against a humiliating and thus accepted existence, is a constant, universal human endeavor, the best in humanity," said Júlia Szilágyi about the novel at its book launch in Cluj in 2010. "Grandma, now trucks are coming, bringing sugar, flour, oil, and medicine; the borders have opened, and there is freedom, you understand?" to which Grandma irritably replied, "I know, but the girl gently continued, 'Grandma, now a new world is coming, you understand?'" to which Grandma said more gently, "There has been a new world so many times."