Broken Fiction is a collection of short autofictional stories and poems that both offer solace and depict anguish at the collision of memory, loss, and grief. This kind of story-making negotiates a recognition and acceptance of hard truths without resorting to easy resolution.The pieces in this volume are playful and fierce. The narrator's willingness to give attention to where love works or goes wrong, or to the moments when suffering cannot be veiled by a positive attitu...

“Don’t cry darling. We need this baby. You will see.”With these words from her husband, Zoltán, Ibolya Rechnitzer’s fear of being pregnant during the uncertainty of wartime is somewhat eased. But in November 1942, four months after their baby, Andy, is born, Zoltán is drafted into the forced labour service of the Hungarian army and Ibolya must cope, alone, as a single mother and a Jew facing persecution in Budapest. Her son gives her a reason to fight, and Ibolya protects him fierc...