They always meant to come home: interview with Imre Oravecz

In his new novel Imre Oravecz tells the story of a Hungarian immigrant family in America at the end of the 19th century. We talked to the writer about the genesis of the novel, about how he left Hungary three times, and why he always came back.

Hungarian name on the Granta list

Granta’s list of Best Young British Novelists for this decade was announced a week ago. There is a Hungarian name on the list: David Szalay.

"Prague kind of lends itself to neurosis". Interview with M.H. Ellis

"Perhaps my novel could be called a search for identity on a national and personal – not to mention, pharmaceutical – level." - Interview with Matt Henderson Ellis, American expat author living in Budapest and editor of the Budapest-based literary review Pilvax Magazine.

"Kafka cured me of my American optimism at an early age". Interview with Jonathan Franzen

"Comedy can certainly be bitter, but it’s also a way of forgiving people, including yourself." - We talked to Jonathan Franzen about anxiety, American families and humour.

The silence of a lost generation. Interview with Judit Kováts

Judit Kováts’s novel is written from the viewpoint of a 19-year-old girl during the Soviet occupation as she is trying to escape Russian soldiers, bombs and forced labour. How is oral history transformed into literature? – An interview with the author.

The word ‘Jew’ casts a long shadow

An interview with Gábor T. Szántó about his new book Threesome, a novel of missing tradition, and the reconciliation of freedom and the modern way of life.

"I like being an outsider". Interview with Noémi Szécsi

"I insist on moving freely between categories, on keeping every door and window open. This is my notion of freedom as a writer." - Interview with Noémi Szécsi, the author of Finno-Ugrian Vampire, recently published in English.

The Holocaust as culture: a conversation with Imre Kertész

Literary historian Thomas Cooper talks to Imre Kertész in this new volume published in the Seagull Books series of The University of Chicago Press. An excerpt from the interview and Cooper's fine introductory essay, published here by courtesy of the publisher.

Towards new unrealities. An interview with László Krasznahorkai

"Those that I ‘intend’ my books for are all kinds of people, but they are definitely not aristocratic, definitely not part of the social elite... they are the elite of the injured, the aristocracy of those who are helpless beyond recovery." - An interview with László Krasznahorkai on fire, evil and suffering.

Poetic killers: interview with Patrick deWitt

"A big motivation for me in writing The Sisters Brothers was to do things you don't normally see in the western genre. Typically, for example, the killers in a western are nearly mute, and sort of stupid, or cruel. So I made my killer protagonist a talkative, smart, poetic neurotic."