In Corrected Version, published in 2002, Esterházy revealed that his father was a spy for Hungary's communist-era secret police.
Answering a question during a talk at the event, Esterházy said the book had had little effect on Hungarian society, but added that books have long lives - once they are written, you can always reach for them.
"Hungarian society is in a bad spot, nobody is curious about their own history, just about the past of others: you were a communist, you were a Nazi - that's what it's all about, but that is just what we were....This can't be kept up forever, because it goes against the best interest of everybody," Esterházy said. "Hungary was not under a Stalinist dictatorship, it was not a mater of life and death, but of whether one got a Trabant or not," he added.
The talk was led by the writer Yevgeny Popov and also included the participation of Géza Morcsányi, who heads Esterházy's Hungarian publisher Magvető, and Vlacheslav Sereda, who translated Corrected Version.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
