Katharina Raabe: How Imre Kertész Found His German Readership

The translator, poet, prose writer, essayist, and educator, Ádám Nádasdy passed away on 29 March.

"If Fatelessness is on one level the story Gyuri Köves, it is also a text whose ambition exceeds the mere telling of that story. As Kertész explained, in writing Fatelessness, he was reflecting not only on the Holocaust but on the nature of dictatorships in general." – Hanna Zelma Horányi continues the HLO Starter Pack series with an essay on Imre Kertész's Fatelessness, in honor of the Nobel Prize-winning author's passing ten years ago.

"Ideology is dangerous territory, especially for artists – we’re a sensitive and persuasive lot. Could there be a more dangerous hotbed for didactic work?" – HLO's Austin Wagner interviews poet Júlia Kustos.

Krisztina Tóth has been busy in New York as the Hungarian writer met with Werner Herzog during a discussion about her novel Eye of the Monkey at the Brooklyn Library, and also saw the US premiere of her play THE BAT on 20 March, which will run through 4 April.

"They tell you a lot in school. They teach us how to think about our own lives through certain narratives. They teach us how to organize large amounts of information. They teach us how the menstrual cycle works and how to use protection. But no one ever teaches us how to be alone and what to do when someone tries to hold your hand." – A short essay from Tímea Turi in which she looks back (fondly?) on the angst and awkwardness of our teenage years, translated by Lola Kadas.

We're delighted to share that Anita Moskát's short story, “Liecraft”, translated by our very own Austin Wagner is in the running for a British Science Fiction Association Award in the Best Translated Short Fiction category.

"Júlia Kustos is a good poet, and it is just such daring gestures and acknowledged blemishes, rarely seen in modern literature, that make Breakwater an outstanding volume." – Balázs Mohácsi reviews Júlia Kustos 2022 debut volume Breakwater (Hullámtörő) for Jelenkor.

"A flutter like sails, / it's easy enough / to blame the weather for / our inadequacies" – three poems from Kata Csordás' debut poetry volume, The Joy of Excess, in Dani Dányi's translation.

"But how did you know from / whence the wind and to where / the sun? Just this you learned: / better to forsake yourself, / than be the forsaken one." – We kickstart our focus on Júlia Kustos, HLO's Author of the Month for March, with two poems from her 2025 poetry volume Helpless Idols (Tehetetlen bálványok), in Austin Wagner's translation.

The translator Joe Váradi’s new bilingual collection titled Áthajlás – Enjambment is an anthology of contemporary Hungarian poetry.

"On the edge of the coffee table stood a feeding bottle, the transparent sides streaked blue and speckled with purple stars. On the floor beside the table was an empty baby seat." – A chilling tale of loss and desperation by Edina Kiss, translated by Dániel Dányi.

Who are we, if our reason for living is defined by those in power? What principles in our lives are inviolable? What compromises do we make in the name of stability and peace? Are we willing to take the risks that freedom requires? – Diana Senechal introduces a masterpiece of Hungarian drama written by János Székely, and currently showing at the National Theatre of Szeged.

The Balassi Education Program’s ten-month literary translation course seeks to deepen participants’ knowledge of Hungarian literature and introduce them to literary translation techniques.

Alien, Ghost is a series of audio meditations on the dilemmas of witnessing and complicity. Through a series of portrait sketches, soundscapes, wartime dreams and personal reflections of working as an anthropologist in Ukraine in wartime, it captures the disorientation and rage of being a contemporary in crisis. Read on for details about Diána Vonnák's audio installation and the "Vessel & Voyager" exhibition in Berlin.

"We created and bore meanings. We pinned suffixes onto each other over and over until we could no longer remember which one of us was the original word." – Thoughtful and personal reflections on motherhood in intricate lyrical prose by Tímea Pénzes, in Kris Herbert's translation. The last in our Slovak-Hungarian poetry series, published on HLO with the kind permission of Bázis.

History seems to have an unfair advantage over literature: it presents situations that are impossible to imagine, or that only the greatest minds can conceive… To me, it seems to say more about what it means to be human than either literature or psychology. – Litera speaks with Zsuzsa Rakovszky.

Liszt Institute London is hosting a conversation with the author of the Booker Prize-winning novel Flesh on March 20.

"What if the slender sonnet begins to swell, / and its own inertia / eats away at the paper’s integrity, / and the insatiable material eventually tears?" – We continue our Slovak-Hungarian poetry focus with three poems from Zoltán Csehy, musings on remembrance, growth, and experience. Translated by Austin Wagner.

Ádám Bodor, the Transylvanian-born author of The Sinistra Zone and The Birds of Verhovina, celebrates his ninetieth birthday.