The festival was the brainchild of Ibolya Virág, a Hungarian translator and publisher who lives in Paris and has done much to expose the literature of Hungary and of the Central European region to France. The festival was organised with the support of France's Ministry of Culture and the Hungarian embassy in Paris. The Hungarian Institute hosted the event.
Virág said that never before had so many Hungarian works of literature been translated into foreign languages. Hungarian literature is experiencing a new golden age abroad, as Western Europe's most important publishers add more and more Hungarian authors to their catalogues. Whereas getting Hungarian works published abroad was the main task earlier, now the big job is to promote these books - to a reading public that has a never-before-seen selection to choose from - once they are published.
Among the Hungarian authors to make an appearance on the first day of the two-day festival were Miklós Vámos, whose book Apák (Fathers) was recently published in French. He spoke with Viviane Chocas, who has written about her Hungarian background in the book Hungarian Bazaar. The Hungarian writer Endre Kukorelly spoke with the critic Zsolt Farkas about the place of contemporary Hungarian literature, its profile at home and abroad and effects of re-publishing old Hungarian classics. The science fiction writer Tibor Fonyódi desribed the reception of his book The Scourge of God in France, and the French author Sylvain Jouty talked about his novel about the Hungarian philologist and Asian expert Sándor Kőrösi Csoma.
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| András Forgách |
On the second day of the festival, the writer András Forgách, the theatre expert Anna Lakos and the critic Jean-Pierre Thibaudat, who is the artistic advisor for the Passages Theatre Festival, analysed contemporary Hungarian theatre. Attila Bartis spoke about the French translation of his book Peace with the editor Martina Wachendorff, the writer Maria Mailat and the translators Natalia Zaremba-Huzsvai and Charles Zaremba.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
