"I do not want to be successful at such a price." Interview with Ferenc Barnás

In mental defeat, doctors do not really have the means to help you, but if you try to spring upwards rather than simply go down, then this dynamics may produce a very special personality.

Another Death (excerpt from the novel)

Ferenc Barnás

Barnás has found an authentic viewpoint and a language that is unique in contemporary fiction to trace that "other life" underneath the life of each of us.

At the service of literary translators: the project BabelMatrix has entered a new phase

Ever since its creation shortly after the turn of the millennium, the project BabelMatrix has undergone several transformations, and it continues to grow.

Kertész's Dossier K now out in English

The first and only memoir from the Nobel Prize-winning author, in the form of an illuminating, often funny, and often combative interview—conducted by the author of himself. Imre Kertész’s response to the hasty biographies and profiles that followed his 2002 Nobel Prize.

Best Translated Book Award 2013 goes to Satantango

George Szirtes’s translation of László Krasznahorkai’s Satantango is the winner of the Best Translated Book Award, founded by the literary website Three Percent at the University of Rochester, NY.

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.

Exhibition on Frigyes Karinthy

“This crazy guy was the greatest genius among us”, Dezső Kosztolányi said about his friend Frigyes Karinthy. A new exhibition at the Petőfi Museum of Literature in Budapest focuses on Karinthy’s life and works, showcasing photos, manuscripts, objects and technical devices.

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.

Hunkies in Toledo

Imre Oravecz's new novel, Californian Quail takes the reader into the world of Eastern European guest workers in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. The author spoke about the traumas and the predicament of Hungarian workers in America at a press breakfast in Budapest.

20th International Book Festival Budapest

The International Book Festival Budapest, a major event of the Central European region, will be held between 18 and 21 April 2013 with almost a hundred participants from twenty-five countries.

Copywriting and literature

While in some parts of the world writers often appear in the media, and even lend their faces to ads, Hungarian writers rarely seem to descend from the ivory tower. So a poet advertising a dish soap still causes consternation for many.

Hungarian presence at the Salon du Livre, Paris 2013

As part of the Balassi Institute’s Publishing Hungary programme, several works of classical and contemporary Hungarian literature were launched in French translation at the Salon du Livre in Paris last week.

Hanele (excerpt)

György Láng

"If this was her fate, why rebel? It couldn’t get any better, only worse" – an excerpt from Hanele, a short novel about an ugly, miserable Jewish orphan girl in a pre-World War II shtetl. The book, rich in ethnographic detail and betraying strong empathy for the outcast, was written by the polymath writer and composer György Láng.