FacebookA Brief Moment in Life
“The days on the Tahrir square were like a Utopia, a young woman tells the reporter, and perhaps you can say something similar about Tamas’ reportages: what makes them so strong is a kind of Utopia, an everyday kind that deserves the name humanism is laid down in their meetings between people.”
Johan Wilhelmsson, Norrköpings Tidningar
The book A Brief Moment in Life presents a selection of Tamas’ most well known and important reportages. We meet young revolutionaries from Prague to Cairo, but also men of power such as prime minister Göran Persson, secretary of the Nobel Committee for Litterature Horace Engdahl and football coach Sven-Göran Eriksson. We travel with a repudiator of the Holocaust to Auschwitz, meet the new middle class of India, read about love across the boundaries in South Africa, take part in the hunt for the war criminal Karadzic and hang out with the supporter club Black Army and a youth gang in Husby.
“As the cliché goes, reality gets to speak for itself. And how it speaks. Tamas’ writings confirm the thesis of the Hungarian Marxist Georg Lukács: If you depict society honestly and faithfully, regardless of intentions, its central conflicts and underlying currents will appear. Even those that have as yet hardly become noticeable. Time and time again Tamas manages to probe the ideological depths and shallows that will mark the debate ten, twenty years later. In addition, he has a ghostlike ability to be in the right place at the right time.”
Tim Andersson, Uppsala Nya Tidning
“Tamas’ writings give the impression of being loyal to the people he meets, without justifying them. He lets them appear as they are, for better or worse, complex, contradictory, nuanced. It is splendid and very effective.”
Ann Heberlein, Sydsvenskan
”Tamas, known as a journalist with plenty of fighting spirit, and as the writer of the books The Laaserman and The Apathetic, is no doubt a master of style, but what characterizes the reportages in this book, maybe even more than the elegant writing, is the respectful and empathic approach.”
Anna Ringberg, Helsingborgs Dagblad
“It’s easy to read, knowledgably told and… well, as good as it gets when it’s at its best. It’s a book that gives know-how and is perfect for those that are curious and interested in society.”
Ingegerd Backlund, VLT Värmlands Läns Tidning