From the gray factory chimneys, coal-dusted streets, and working-class families of Miskolc in the 1970s and 1980s came two girls, Edó and Mesi.
For four years they sat side by side in the same classroom at Kilián High School - laughing, dreaming, and looking out at a world that still felt beyond reach.
Sport became their refuge, basketball the means by which they could escape the dust of the iron city and prove that talent, determination, and friendship know no boundaries.
Two young girls who found freedom even within the rigid world of socialism - in movement, in solidarity, in perseverance.
The story of Edo and Mesi is not only the chronicle of a friendship, but also the story of Miskolc itself: a city that gave them toughness and resilience, loyalty and defiance.
This book is not a literal biography, but a work of fiction rooted in reality - a story that could have happened this way.
The characters, situations, and destinies were born from real life, then shaped into literature, so that every reader may recognize fragments of their own past, youth, and friendships.
Edo and Mesi does not judge and does not explain - it simply tells.
It tells of an era that was both cruel and beautiful.
Of the journeys of two women who always found their way back to their feet - from childhood deprivation, through the chaos of political transition, through loss, grief, and life itself.
This novel was born in the heart of Miskolc, yet it speaks to every Hungarian reader.
Because all of us once sat on a bench where friendship, faith, and the future were woven together - and because we all know what it feels like to stand up again, no matter how many times life knocks us down.