Every Statue Tells a Story

This book aims to introduce readers to the public sculpture of Budapest by providing information about who or what the various statues and monuments represent, about their sculptors and about the works themselves - style, location, history, removal, return, etc. The aim is also to stimulate an interest in and critical appreciation of the sculptural environment of the city, so that readers themselves will begin to ask questions about the statues they see - who or what is this, when was it erected, and why here? Finally, the aim is to demystify public sculpture - you might say to bring it down from its pedestal - and encourage both a critical and a playful attitude to statues and their meanings.

Bob Dent is a British writer, researcher and editor. His interest in statues, and why they are there, stems from his many years spent in Liverpool, a city with a large number of public monuments. Bob Dent has lived in Budapest since 1986 and has written extensively about Hungary's history, politics, economy and culture for a variety of British and local publications. He has reported on Hungary for a number of radio stations and has acted as a research consultant for TV crews filming in the country. He currently works as a copy editor of translations, researcher, writer and occasional tour guide. Every Statue Tells A Story is his seventh book about Hungary and his fifth about Budapest, which - like Liverpool - is a city whose history has been written in bronze and stone.

In November 2008 the Budapest Municipality awarded Bob Dent a "Budapestért" (For Budapest) Prize in recognition of his writings - with their "interesting and unique approach" - about the culture and history of Hungary and in particular Budapest.

In this new work Bob Dent casts a critical and often humorous eye at Budapest's many statues and public monuments, all of which, in their own different ways, speak volumes about Hungary's history and culture.