Tibor Fischer (Hungary): Good to be God

Translation:

Jessica Duchen
Jessica Duchen is a writer (author of three novels; Hungarian Dances, Rites of Spring and Alicia’s Gift) as well as a music journalist for The Independent and the author of two biographies and three stage works. As a journalist, she writes regularly for The Independent, BBC Music Magazine and Classic FM Magazine; she has also contributed to The Guardian, The New Statesman and Gramophone.

Tibor Fischer
Born to Hungarian parents and brought up in South London, Tibor Fischer was educated at Cambridge and worked as a journalist. He was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his first novel, Under the Frog, which also won a Betty Trask Award, and was nominated as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. Subsequent works include The Thought Gang, The Collector Collector, Don’t Read this Book if You’re Stupid and Voyage to the End of the Room.

Good to be God, Alma Books, 2008
In this darkly cynical and surreal novel Tyndale Corbett, a middle-aged, unemployed lighting salesman from London swaps the life of a loser for the life of God. He borrows a friend’s passport and flies to Miami where he uses his marketing skills to sell salvation, first as an assistant pastor at the Church of the Heavily Armed Christ, then as God himself.