Dragomán's book The White King was published in German, by the renowned Suhrkamp Verlag, which is also the publisher of the Hungarian Nobel Prize-winning author Imre Kertész, shortly before the start of the fair. The novel has been published in more than twenty languages in the past year and a half.
State Secretary at the Ministry of Education and Culture Márta Schneider acknowledged Dragomán's importance for Hungary at the book fair, but she also praised the work of György Dalos, who has made great efforts to popularise Hungarian literature in Germany for more than a decade.
Such was Hungary's success at this year's Frankfurt Book Fair that several Hungarian publishers are considering setting up independent stands at next year's event, Schneider said.
Péter László Zentai, who heads the Hungarian Association of Publishers and Booksellers (MKKE), said the days when the fair is opened to the public received a greater emphasis this year. As most of Hungary's book presentations were timed to take place on these days, more people participated than at last year's fair.
Zentai said the Nobel Prize-winning Turkish author Orhan Pamuk represented his country - the guest of honour at this year's fair - well at the event, but he spoke less highly of electronic books, which were also in the spotlight in Frankfurt this year. Though he conceded that electronic books - mostly talking books - accounted for more than a fifth of the titles on display at the fair, Zentai said he believed few readers would want to stare at a screen for as long as it takes to read a novel by Günter Grass, for example.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
Photo: Máté Nándorfi
