I Don't Care

Author: Kristof, Agota

Classic fiction (pre c 1945)

Published on 21 August 2025 by Penguin Books Ltd (Penguin Classics) in the United Kingdom as part of 'the Penguin International Writers' series.

Never before translated short stories by the legendary Ágota Kristóf 'One of the 20th century's greatest writers' Camilla Grudova'Pure genius' Max PorterI don’t care: it’s not even pretty. The song is sad, and old, so old.

I Don't Care presents the best short fiction by the Hungarian master Ágota Kristóf, selected by the author herself and available in English for the first time. Written immediately before her acclaimed Notebook trilogy, the works here oscillate between parables, surrealist anecdotes, and stories animated by a realism stripped to the bone. By turns harrowing and whimsical, cruel and sharply funny, Kristóf’s world shifts our gaze to a shared reality, past and present. Here exile and existential alienation are undeniable – as is the force of every sentence, making for extraordinary and essential reading.

Translated from French by Chris Andrews