The Fencers

“The Fencers by Geza Tatrallyay is a beautifully woven, true tale of perseverance and fencing! … This book isn't long, but it sure packs a punch … The Olympic story line, Geza's undergraduate and graduate tales and Paul's story all wrapped up into one perfect gift … The story may pull at your heart strings a bit near the end, but otherwise it's an empowering tale! Overall, this book was a real gem! … Five out of five stars!” -Briar’s Reviews 

“The Fencers is a story of emotional conflict, hope for a brighter future, and courage to act when failure seems imminent. It’s the story of friendship and the desire to lead a free life. Tatrallyay has written a compelling memoir that will keep you reading until the end.” -Kathleen Kaska, Author of The Sydney Lockhart mystery series

“… I braced myself and entered the world of author, Geza Tatrallyay through his memoir, The Fencers, the third volume in a trilogy of autobiographical Cold War escape stories. I’m sure glad I did … I was fascinated to learn of the author’s background, his own family’s escape from Communist Hungary, starting out from scratch in a new country, Canada, fitting into a society that was so different it must have seemed like it was on another planet. We follow the author’s highs and lows as he set out to become a fencer and eventually finds himself, to his own great surprise, representing Canada as an épée fencer in the 1976 Montreal Olympics ... against that background, the author describes his meeting and developing relationship with Paul Szabó, a Romanian-Hungarian fencer who wanted to defect to the West. He was representing Romania at the Games but he was willing to put everything on the line, including his life, to avoid returning to corrupt, cruel regime of Nicolae Ceausescu. The author assisted him to do so and, in the process, became a life-long friend. Tragedy struck Szabó later but he managed to start a new life, as the author did, in his adopted country. The Fencers is a fascinating, hard-to-put-down read.” -Daryl Greer, Author of Calvus, Bounty and other novels, for Readers’ Favorite