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