Attila Bartis's novella The Walk and György Dragomán's novel The White King both take place during the time of the Ceausescu dictatorship, yet they are not about the dictatorship. Neither Romania nor the plight of Hungarians living in Romania is at the centre of their books.
"I didn't want to say something about ethnic conflict or about being Transylvanian, but about being defenceless and oppressed," says Dragomán, who was born in Transylvania in 1973, but has lived in Budapest since 1988.
Bartis was born in Transylvania in 1968, but moved to Budapest in 1984, after his father, the well-known writer and editor Ferenc Bartis, was stripped of his Romanian citizenship and exiled. Since the fall of Communism, Bartis has often travelled to his old home.
The Walk is more than just a caricature of a political system, though the Communist dictatorship did serve as a catalyst for transforming everything into something absurd, says Bartis. The grotesque presence did not disappear entirely after the fall of the dictatorship, he adds.
"Nobody ever said that everything that happened (in Romania) before 1986 was only a result of Communism."
Bartis believes the absurdity under the Communist dictatorship was tragic. But today's absurdity is more humorous.
Dragomán says there are plenty of contemporary grotesque themes, adding that he is working on a novella about a wrestler who must lose ten kilogrammes in order to make it to the Olympics.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
Photo: Nándorfi Máté
To read an interview with Dragomán visit http://culture.hu/main.php?folderID=1094&articleID=264802&ctag=articlelist&iid=1
