The Expo Affair: A Cold War Escape Story

by Geza Tatrallyay

Geza Tatrallyay was born in Budapest, Hungary, and escaped with his family in 1956, immigrating to Canada. Geza worked as a host in the Ontario Pavilion at Expo '70, was selected as a Rhodes Scholar, attending Oxford University, and represented Canada as an epée fencer in the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. He is the author of Twisted Reasons (Deux Voiliers), For the Children (Editions Dedicaces), and Cello's Tears (P.R.A. Publishing). Since 2004, he has been semi-retired, devoting his time to his family and his writing.

210 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 2016

About the author

Born in Budapest, Hungary, Geza escaped with his family in 1956 during the Hungarian Revolution, emigrating to Canada the same year. He grew up in Toronto, attending the University of Toronto Schools, where he was School Captain. He graduated from Harvard University with a BA in Human Ecology in 1972 (after taking a break in his studies to work as a host in the Ontario Pavilion at Expo’70 in Osaka, Japan). Geza was selected as a Rhodes Scholar from Ontario, attending Oxford University and graduating with a BA/MA in Human Sciences in 1974; he completed his studies with a MSc in Economics from London School of Economics and Politics in 1975. Geza represented Canada as an epée fencer in the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal.

Geza’s professional experience has included stints in government (Department of Finance, Canada), international organizations (Inter-American Development Bank), commercial / investment banking (Royal Bank of Canada), private equity (MAVA Capital in Hungary) and environmental entrepreneurship (Vertis Environmental Finance). Since 2004, he has been semi-retired, advising a few firms mainly in the clean energy sector and devoting himself to his family, travel and writing. Geza is a citizen of Canada and Hungary, with an American wife, a daughter living in San Francisco and a son in Nairobi, and currently divides his time between San Francisco and Barnard, Vermont, with frequent visits to Montreal, Toronto, New York, Vienna and London.

Reviews

[Geza Tatrallyay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a personal memoir of the approach to the author by three Czechoslovak girls working in their Pavilion as hostesses at Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan, who want to defect to Canada, given the renewed repression in their homeland after the events of the 'Prague Spring'. The author and his friends, as well as the girls, were young 'twenty-somethings' at the time, and the scene at Expo was full of play and partying. Yet against this backdrop in a just emerging Japan, mesmerized by the first large group of foreigners living on their soil since the post-War American occupation, the author is drawn into a dangerous Cold War struggle with the KGB and Czech secret police. With the tension mounting slowly to a staccato, surprise finish this is a worthwhile read.

[Ilana · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://wildwritinglife.blogspot.de/20...