Few writers today tackle sweeping, multigenerational family sagas, work that demands vast life experience and insight. József Attila Prize–winner Árpád Thiery has done just that: his two published volumes of the Freytág Siblings’ story (1943 through the late 1960s) have been adapted by Hungarian Television into a five-part series slated for January 1989, and he’s already completed the trilogy’s final installment. Thiery describes it as a historical family novel, tracing postwar Hungary, from the...