Books by Michael Stewart

This book provides an account of the changing attitudes and policies towards the Gypsies in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in Communist Europe and in post-Communist Hungary. It presents a general study of the dramatic transformations that have occurred throughout Eastern Europe.

`An astonishing novel' The Independent I am William Lee: brute; liar, and graveside thief. But you will know me by another name.

Mr Jolly is the first collection of short stories by Michael Stewart, and contains some of the award-winning novelist¿s most extraordinary writing to date. Each tale offers a unique, utterly compelling insight into the human condition, framed by a mind-bendingly original concept that no other writer working today could ¿ or indeed would ¿ have concocted. Readers will meet a conformity-obsessed league of bald men, breaking into homes for an extended debate about the nature of freedom; discuss the nomenclature of the marshmallow with a man whose single goal in life is to witness them accidentally skewered on stiletto heels; and meet God, in perhaps the most frustrating (yet believable) depiction of the divine being in modern literature.Last phone calls, alien abductions, murders and more are grounded in stories of struggling parents, baffled lovers and lost children (some of who may live permanently onthe number 606 bus). However long you live, and however much you read, yoüll never come across another book quite like this.

THE GUARDIAN - "e;A beguiling mix of anomie and ornithology.This novel is brilliant.' DAVID PEACE. "e; A brilliant novel. One of the best debuts I have read in years."e; Paul Cooper is an outsider. When he looks at people he wonders what bird they are. He finds making friends difficult especially when he has to move from school to school, so he obsesses about ornithology until he meets Ashley...

Offers an intimate view of the Hungarian Gypsies who, despite persecution, hostility, and racism, have managed to retain their rich cultural and communal heritage.