You Cannot Forbid the Flower
WHEN YOU’VE LOST EVERYTHING, WHAT DO YOU HOLD ON TO?
German-occupied Transylvania, October 1944. Seventeen and in love with a girl he’d never even spoken to, a young Hungarian is forced to fight for the Germans, then flee his homeland after Romania allies with the Soviet Union and wins control of northern Transylvania, liberating it from Nazi rule. A refugee in his own country, he soon finds love in the ruins of Budapest. But life under the ever-watchful eyes of “Father” Stalin and the notorious Hungarian secret police is a new kind of terror. When peaceful protests erupt into violence in October 1956, he joins the uprisers battling the mighty Soviets in one of the most important and tragic events of the Cold War.
In this stunning and “wholly unique” (Cleaver) debut, Elizabeth Lukács Chesla travels back and forth across time to tell the story of her father, a Freedom Fighter who escapes after the Soviet Union’s brutal suppression of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Weaving together stories, poems, historical documents, and memoir, she attempts to make sense of the twelve days that defined her father and his homeland. From the history and folklore of Transylvania where her father was born, to the first shots fired on the peaceful protestors sparking the revolution, to the history of the Molotov cocktail, the Freedom Fighters’ main weapon against the Soviet tanks, Chesla explores the causes and consequences of the revolution to keep the memory of her father–and the nearly 3,000 rebels and civilians killed in the revolution–alive. An ode to a distant father, language, and homeland, You Cannot Forbid the Flower is a profound meditation on love, loss, and the power of story.
Awards
- Best Novella, 2023 American Writing Awards
- Finalist, Best Fiction Debut, 2023 American Writing Awards
- Finalist, Best Historical Fiction, 2023 American Writing Awards
- Finalist, DaVinci Eye Award, 2024 Eric Hoffer Awards
- Honorable Mention, Shorts/Anthologies, 2024 Eric Hoffer Awards
- Finalist, Short Prose and Novellas, 2023 Chanticleer International Book Awards
Interviews & Reviews
- “Dichotomies with Elizabeth Lukács Chesla,” How Literature Can Save the World Podcast, December 4, 2025
- “You Cannot Forbid the Flower: A Revolutionary Discussion,” The Hungarian Heritage Podcast, May 2, 2024
- YCFF reviewed by Benjamin Selesnick in Cleaver Magazine
- YCFF reviewed by Peter Clenott, Historical Novel Society
Short Prose
“Waiting,” in Flare: An Anthology of Chronic Illness Told in Flash Narratives, forthcoming from Ad Hoc Fiction, 2026.
“Reclaiming Hungarian Heritage, One Story at a Time: My Grandmother,” in Hungarian Roots & American Dreams: Tracing Personal and Local History, rootStories / AMERICANA eBooks, 2025. Edited by Réka Bakos and Anna Fenyvesi.
“Ectopia (Or, Tunnels of Love),” in Quarter After Eight, vol. 23, 2017.
Finalist in the Robert J. DeMott short prose contest, selected by Ander Monson.
Translations
“Vacation,” short story by Panni Puskás, translated from the Hungarian, in Hungarian Literature Online, February 20, 2025.
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ELIZABETH LUKÁCS CHESLA 