Yesterday

The prose Yesterday is the fourth and final novel by Hungarian-Swiss writer Agota Kristofová (1935–2011). The novel is thematically based on the period when the writer, after her escape from Hungary in 1956, worked as a factory worker for ten years. Kristofová thematizes the homesickness and feelings of hopelessness of Hungarian exiles who, like herself, had difficulty adjusting to the conditions of Western capitalist society. However, the realities of the emigrant world are only a backdrop, albeit a personally experienced one, for the carefully constructed and maximally economical drama of " great impossible love". Exile and worker Tobiáš unexpectedly meets his childhood friend and is convinced that he has found his long-awaited, destined love. But a number of circumstances prevent the fulfillment of a love relationship: Lina is married, has a child, and feels socially superior. And everything is complicated by Tobiáš' s contradictory nature, which is determined by his sharp intelligence and literary talent, but also pathological tendencies caused by childhood traumas.