Sent to a remote village for the duration of the war, two children devise physical and mental exercises to render themselves invulnerable to pain and sentiment. The Notebook distils the experience of Nazi occupation and Soviet 'liberation' during World War II into a stark fable of timeless relevance. In The Proof and The Third Lie perspectives shift and identity becomes unstable as Claus and Lucas, isolated in different countries, yearn for the restoration of their lost connection. The novels are an exploration of both the after-effects of trauma and the nature of story-telling.

These three internationally acclaimed novels have confirmed Agota Kristof's reputation as one of the most provocative exponents of new-wave European fiction. With all the stark simplicity of a fractured fairy tale, the trilogy tells the story of twin brothers, Claus and Lucas, locked in an agonizing bond that becomes a gripping allegory of the forces that have divided brothers in much of Europe since World War II. Kristof's postmodern saga begins with The Notebook, in which the brothers are children, lost in a country torn apart by conflict, who must learn every trick of evil and cruelty merely to survive. In The Proof, Lucas is challenging to prove his own identity and the existence of his missing brother, a defector to the other side. The Third Lie, which closes the trilogy, is a biting parable of Eastern and Western Europe today and a deep exploration into the nature of identity, storytelling, and the truths and untruths that lie at the heart of them all. Stark and haunting. - The San Francisco Chronicle; A vision of considerable depth and complexity, a powerful portrait of the nobility and perversity of the human heart. - The Christian Science Monitor.

Narrated in a series of stark, brief vignettes, The Illiterate is Agota Kristof's memoir of her childhood, her escape from Hungary in 1956 with her husband and small child, her early years working in factories in Switzerland, and the writing of her first novel, The Notebook. Few writers can convey so much in so little space. Fierce yet almost pointedly flat and documentarian in tone, Kristof portrays with a disturbing level of detail and directness an implacable message of loss: first, she is forced to learn Russian as a child (with the Soviet takeover of Hungary, Russian became obligatory at school); next, at age 21, she finds herself required to learn French to survive: It is in this way that, at the age of twenty-one, when I arrive in Switzerland and when, completely by chance, I arrive in a city where French is spoken, I confront a language that is totally unknown to me. It is here that my battle to conquer this language begins, a long and arduous battle that will last my entire life. I have spoken French for more than thirty years, I have written in French for twenty years, but I still don't know it. I don't speak it without mistakes, and I can only write it with the help of dictionaries, which I frequently consult. It is for this reason that I also call the French language an enemy language. There is a further reason, the most serious of all: this language is killing my mother tongue.

This volume is a collection of all nine plays Kristof wrote; five full length plays and four shorter plays.This collection contains the plays: John and Joe, The Lift Key, A Passing Rat, The Grey Hour or the Last Client, The Monster, The Road, The Epidemic, The Atonement, and Line, of times.