It is May 1918, war is sweeping Europe, and a group of boys await graduation in their near-deserted town. Drawn close by an unspoken fear of leaving home to fight, they retreat into a clandestine world of codes, hideaways and fierce invention - until one day a stranger enters their lives and their secret is exposed.

From the great Hungarian author of Embers, The Rebels is the story of a final, precious summer: a haunting novel of youthful exuberance burning in the face of irrevocable change.

`Great qualities of deep, cynical realism combined with a wild, sometimes surrealistic sense of beauty'

Sunday Times

`Elegant, languid and almost subversive. To read it is an experience that leaves one fully alert'

Irish Times

`Delicate brilliance . . . perfect and unforgettable detail, like a landscape in the last moments before darkness falls'

Literary Review