"Any book can be translated, you just need the right person for the job," said the translator Judith Sollosy about the first step in bringing Hungarian literature to foreign readers. Speaking from experience, Sollosy said the better the writer, the easier it is to translate. For this reason, it is easier to translate Péter Esterházy or Lajos Parti Nagy than a newspaper article, she added.
László Kúnos
, who heads the publishing company Corvina Kiadó, said foreign readers understand contemporary Hungarian literature far better if they have read some of the country's classics. "If a foreigner is curious as to what goes on in the heads of Hungarians, I would recommend three works: The Tragedy of Man, The Stars of Eger and The Paul Street Boys."
Kúnos conceded that foreign publishers are uninterested in translations of Hungarian classics, which is why Corvina makes it a point to put them out. He stressed the importance of getting foreign visitors to Hungary to take one or two of these classics home with them.
The Hungarian Book Foundation (MKA) makes a big effort to raise the profile of Hungarian literature abroad, said the foundation's head Dóra Károlyi. MKA runs a website that aims to bring Hungarian literature to speakers of German and English at www.hunlit.hu and it is preparing a French version of the website too.
Spanish speakers can get to know Hungarian literature at www.lho.es, and a French language website is in the works. It is hoped that a unified online database of Hungarian works of literature in translation can be set up with the cooperation of Hungarian culture institutes abroad, Károlyi added.
Gábor Schein
warned that the number of number of institutions of higher learning that have Hungarian literature programmes -- the main source of translators of Hungarian literature - is declining. "But this could be changed with a more active culture policy, and with money," he added.
Márta Nagy
of Budapest's Goethe Institute said the German culture institute had tried to find new ways to popularize contemporary German literature. In December, the institute distributed anthologies of excerpts from 13 German writers to travelers on the 4/6 tram, perhaps Budapest's busiest, along with a coupon for a book that could be redeemed at the Goethe Institute. The coupons were redeemed in just two weeks, she added.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI) / Photo: Barnabás Honéczy
