An interview with the translator of Tomas Tranströmer

In a 2001 interview, Ferenc Mervel talked about Tomas Tranströmer's poetry, its poetic, musical and psychological inspirations and the Swedish poet's friendship with János Pilinszky.

"A writer should be a bit lonely"

Our interview with Tomas Venclova, Lithuanian poet, essayist and professor of literature at Yale University, on social and historical parallels between Eastern European nations, on the notion of home and on the special meaning of Hamlet in our region.

Creating an "Animal English"

Scott Esposito's interview with Ottilie Mulzet, the translator of "Animalinside", on Krasznahorkai's prose, Hungarian irony, the art of translation, and the use of graphics in literary texts.

"I wanted to tear those stereotypes apart"

An interview with Sofi Oksanen

"Eating disorders and the Soviet Union—maybe they seem like very different subjects, and first I was hesitating how it would work. But then I thought this was a way to get very different readers." - An interview with Finnish writer Sofi Oksanen.

Just tell his story

An interview with Per Olov Enquist

He was very honest with himself in his autobiography, he was balancing between fiction and reality in the book written for his grandchildren, and he made fiction out of facts in his historical novels. - An interview with Per Olov Enquist in Budapest.

A third birth

Andreï Makine, Russian by birth but writing in French, was one of the participants at the Budapest Book Festival in April 2011. In a talk organized at the festival, Makine told his audience about his new book, Alternaissance, published under the pseudonym of Gabriel Osmonde.

Wild young horses

An interview with Barbara Epler

A publisher of innovative and experimental work from the beginning, New Directions’s main aim today is to make the works of foreign writers known in the US. We talked to Barbara Epler, editor-in-chief of New Directions at the Budapest Book Festival.

Per Olov Enquist: I was looking on myself as a character

A video interview with Per Olov Enquist

We talked to Per Olov Enquist, the guest of honour of the 2011 Budapest International Book Festival about reticence and honesty and about the challenges of autobiographical writing. - Video.

A river poet

An interview with Péter Kántor

"Politics is important, but it is not the most important thing in life. But since we can only skirt around the really important things, we tend to choose something that is less important but still important enough, and give our lives to it."

We can never express precisely what we mean

An interview with Agota Kristof

One of the most acclaimed representatives of francophone literature, Agota Kristof was awarded the most prestigious Hungarian state prize. When she visited Hungary last year, she thought she would never come back again, but now she came to take the award. We talked to Agota Kristof in Budapest.