Oliver VII
Oliver VII is a novel by Antal Szerb. Originally published in 1942, the book's first English translation was published in 2007. In the book, the restless ruler of an obscure Central European state plots a coup against himself and escapes to Venice in search of ‘real’ experience. There he falls in with a team of con men and ends up, to his own surprise, impersonating himself. His journey through successive levels of illusion and reality teaches him much about the world, about his own nature and the paradoxes of the human condition.
Translated from the Hungarian by Len Rix, and for the reprint edition
