The Smell of Prison (Extracts)
Ádám Bodor in Conversation with Zsófia Balla

A series of radio interviews involving the novelist and his fellow Transylvanian, the poet Zsófia Balla, were fashioned into a memoir by Bodor, who has been living in Hungary since the early 1980s. His novels and stories are set in the Sinistra district, the parallel world to the Romania of the Communist era, where his characters act and are acted on according to a logic which is parrallel though familiar. His new book is the autobiography which his fiction has been preparing us for years: the borderland setting with a multi-ethnic population, teenage political resistance (a plan to inject viper serum into the victim, they couldn't find any vipers), interrogation and imprisonment.
This is the first of three extracts and our next issue will also contain a short story by Bodor.

Poems
By Krisztina Tóth

This young prize-winning poet appears in English for the first time, in David Hill's translations.

The Hungarian Book of Letters
Extracts

The survival of this anthology of Hungarian correspondence in itself is a miracle. Originally compiled in the 30s by József Balogh, the first editor of The Hungarian Quarterly, who used his wide range of contacts in public and private archives and libraries, it was prepared for publication by the end of the war, actually set up for printing, reset again just before the Communist take-over. The Mss and proofs, highly incorrect politically, were to be destroyed out of fear but were rediscovered in a cellar - happily because many of the originals have since disappeared. In essence it is a reader in the public and private life of Hungary over the centuries. The extracts we publish here begin with a plea from King Béla to the Pope in 1254 for aid against the Mongol horde, a charming 16th century correspondence between the Palatine Tamás Nádasdy and his wife, letters to and from the great nineteenth century poet Sándor Petöfi (including one in English from his fellow poet and Shakespearean translator János Arany); there is also a passionate plea for Hungarian-Italian coalition to make war on two fronts against Austria from Lajos Kossuth sent to Garibaldi during the former's exile in Italy, a baleful summary of England from the the Minister of Education Ágoston Trefort on quitting England ("'the language is spoken hideously'') in 1884, and Count Albert Apponyi on the chaotic situation in the prostrate Hungary of 1919.

My Life as Editor
By László Lator

Poet and translator, the author worked for many years at the Európa publishing house, which produced an astonishing output of literature in translation, painstakingly and lovingly translated and edited. From this account, we highlight the means by which Európa managed to bring out the Russian classics (among many others, including a complete and annoted Shakespeare), labyrinthian methods of circumventing censorship after 1956, a favourite series, and an absurd adventure with James Thurber, to which the translator involved appends an account.

The article following provides an overview of publishing during that period.

The Unbought Grace: Literature and Publishing under Socialism
By Ferenc Takacs

István Bart: Világirodalom és könyvkiadás a Kádár-korszakban (World Literature and publishing in the Kádár Era). Budapest, Scholastica, 2000, 150 pp.

The literary critic reviews an important account of how publishing was conducted under the old regime. He notes that, despite the absurdities, an astonishing range of major literature in translation was produced, of an unprecedented quality, from Latin and Greek classics to contemporary fiction. The authorities were caught in the dilemma of their own cultural policy: "So they embarked on a policy that controlled what it maintained and maintained what it controlled. In other words: it fed the controllers of culture with something they could control while it also fed those who maintained culture in order for its controllers to have something to control."

Figuring the History of Hungary
By Norbert Izsák

Századok statisztikája (The Statistics of Centuries). Budapest, KSH. (Central Bureau of Statistics) 2001, 246 pp.

This review article extrapolates some of the country's history from a book published by the Central Bureau of Statistics. Comparing changes and continuities, the author highlights various bumps the figures reveal, such as the after effects of the Second World War, the growing welfare dependency, consumption patterns, travel and tourism and suicide rates, and relates them to the Hungary of the present.

Superb Poems Superbly Translated
By George Szirtes

Attila József: Sixty Poems. Translated by Edwin Morgan. Mariscat. 2001, 75 pp.

"It is, inevitably, as a poet of the city, and of the place of the poor in the city, that József enters the consciousness of the foreign reader through translation. It is the most convenient, and probably the most fitting door for him.
And here, in these sixty translations by Edwin Morgan, the door seems finer, more complete and more convincing than seemed possible. It is a door for a whole poet, not for individual poems, in that Morgan's ear and intelligence have created a language and technique flexible enough to accommodate a wider range of József's poetry than anyone else has managed so far. This is certainly not to argue that Morgan's József is, in fact, József, but that Morgan's József has a coherent and convincing poetic identity that partakes of Morgan's but is not simply a version of Morgan."

So concludes the Anglo-Hungarian poet, himself acknowledged as a leading translator, on this version of Attila József from the Scottish poet.

A New Life of Radnóti
By Gyözö Ferencz

Zsuzsanna Ozsváth: In the Footsteps of Orpheus: The Life and Times of Miklós Radnóti. Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 2000, 264 pp.

Miklós Radnóti was killed on a forced march with his labour battalion at the end of 1944, his last poems being found in his coat pocket when his body was exhumed. His self-identification as a Hungarian as against a Jew is one of the topics the poet Gyözö Ferencz examines in this review of a new book on Radnóti, after summarizing the translations and literature on him to date. Radnóti's poetry "stands the fairest chance of becoming part of the Western canon," and the review succintly places it in its context, reflecting on a poet whose "death came to be a symbol, a universal memento of a horrible age."

All the City's a Stage
By Andrea Tompar

Klára Györgyey: Molnár Ferenc, Budapest, Magvetô, 2001, 292 pp. * György Nagy: Molnár Ferenc a világsiker úján (Ferenc Molnár on the Road to World Fame) Budapest, Tina, 2001, 202pp.

With the 50th anniversary of the playwright and novelist's death upon us, the theatre historian Andrea Tompa, looks at two books originally published outside Hungary to place Molnár in a theatrical context. Pointing out that the writer and Budapest were almost coevals (Molnár was born in 1878 the city, through unification of its constituent parts, five years earlier), she sees his relationship with his native city as crucial. The theatre as theme is a feature of many of his plays, which she feels is inadequately explored by the two books under review. The non-dramatic work is skimped on and links between it and the oeuvre as a whole is ignored.

Ernst von Dohnányi: A Tribute
By Alan Walker

Professor Walker, author of a monumental biography of Liszt, turns his attention to the composer and pianist who, with Bartók and Kodály, formed Hungary's musical triumvirate in the last century. He outlines a biography, beginning with the early years and describes his virtues as a performer. Very much the leading musical light in Hungary by the early thirties, Dohnányi's world started to collapse with the advent of the war, Hungary's turn to the extreme right and the arrival of the Red Army. All this was to lead to absurd charges of "war crimes" laid against him (handing Jewish musicians over to the Gestapo, etc), unbased as Professor Walker demonstrates. Finally he discusses the reception of Dohnányi's music and his happy later years in Florida.

Bartók's Eyes
By Paul Griffiths

István Gaál: Gyökerek (Roots). * Béla Bartók: Solo Piano Music 7. Philips 289 464 639

The New York Times music critic here praises a fascinating film (in three parts, each of one hour) on the composer and the concluding volume of Zoltán Kocsis's complete recording of Bartók's piano music.
A book on the film director is the subject of a review elsewhere in this issue.

A Week of Promise: Film Week 2002
By Erzsébet Bori

György Pálfi: Hukkle * Szabolcs Tolnai: Arccal a földnek (Face Down) * Ibolya Fekete: Chico * Gábor Dettre: A felhö a Gangesz felett (Cloud Above the River Ganges) * András Dér: A kanyaron túl (Beyond the Bend) * Ildikó Szabó: Chacho rom * Zoltán Kamondi: Kisértések (Temptations)

Although this year's annual showcase for Hungarian cinema gave us no obvious masterpieces, our film critic is pleased by the vitality of first (and equally important) second feature films on display. "To bring to the public about twenty-five watchable films ... is no mean feat," she concludes , after outlining the difficulties facing film production at the moment.