The book is about family history, platonic love, marriage and the self-reflective world of words. Dóra Péczeli, the book's editor, says it is emotional without being sentimental.
Esterházy's 1985 Helping Verbs of the Heart (A szív segédigéi), in which the author addressed his mother's death as a linguistic problem, ended with a promise: "I will write about his in greater detail later." Péczeli says Nothing is Art fulfills this promise.
The book's publisher, Magvető, says Nothing is Art is about a mother and about a mother tongue, and the language of football. (Esterházy's love of football - he played in the amateur league and his brother was a professional - can be seen in many of his works.)
Péczeli notes that, while the novel is not a documentary of Esterházy's family life, it does show the life of a family with noble roots under socialism.
Nothing is Art will also be published as a talking book, read by Esterházy himself.
The book will be launched at a reading and signing by Esterházy at the 15th Budapest International Book Festival on April 24-28.
Esterházy's books have been translated into more than 20 languages and he is perhaps the best known contemporary Hungarian author on the continent. He is the recipient of many prestigious awards, including the Kossuth Prize, Hungary's highest acknowledgement for artists.
