Oliver VII is a 1942 novel by Antal Szerb. The first English translation was published in 2007. In the book, the restless ruler of an obscure central European state plots a coup d'état 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, ISBN  978-1-901285-79-6 and ISBN  978-1-901285-90-1 for the reprint edition.

External links

• PushkinPress.com English editions of works by the author Antal Szerb
• Financial Times Review by Alberto Manguel
• Review in The Guardian
• Review by Complete Review