
The Door
Magda Szabo(Author)
Vintage Classics (Publisher)
Published on 16. April 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
272 pages
978-1-5299-4019-0 (ISBN)
Description
Nothing is more mysterious than another human soul.
Magda is a writer, Emerence her housekeeper. Magda is new to their quiet Hungarian town, while Emerence, fierce and enigmatic, knows and is known by all. Though she enters Magda's home whenever she pleases, the door to Emerence's own strange abode remains barred. Still, somehow, over the course of twenty years, an intimate trust is built between the two, rich with secrets.
Yet when this trust is betrayed one dark afternoon, the pair's complex relationship will be left forever altered, and Magda will find herself haunted until the end of her days. For not all doors are made to be opened.
'A dark domestic fairy tale' New York Times
Translated by Len Rix
Magda is a writer, Emerence her housekeeper. Magda is new to their quiet Hungarian town, while Emerence, fierce and enigmatic, knows and is known by all. Though she enters Magda's home whenever she pleases, the door to Emerence's own strange abode remains barred. Still, somehow, over the course of twenty years, an intimate trust is built between the two, rich with secrets.
Yet when this trust is betrayed one dark afternoon, the pair's complex relationship will be left forever altered, and Magda will find herself haunted until the end of her days. For not all doors are made to be opened.
'A dark domestic fairy tale' New York Times
Translated by Len Rix
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 193 mm
Width: 131 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
194 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5299-4019-0 (9781529940190)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Magda Szabo
The Door
A hauntingly beautiful literary classic on female friendship from twentieth-century Hungary
E-Book
02/2012
1st Edition
Vintage Digital
€8.99
Available for download
Persons
Magda Szabo was born in 1917 in Debrecen, Hungary. She began her literary career as a poet. In the 1950s she disappeared from the publishing scene for political reasons and made her living by teaching and translating from French and English. She began writing novels, and in 1978 was awarded the Kossuth Prize, the most prestigious literary award in Hungary. Magda Szabo died in 2007.