Category Hungarian
Against Camouflage: Jozefina Komporaly on Translating from Hungarian Melinda Mátyus’ “MyLifeandMyLife”
Melinda Mátyus’ novel in verse “MyLifeandMyLife” is one of the most original pieces of experimental fiction published in Hungarian in recent years. We are grateful to Ugly Duckling Presse for allowing us to publish here Jozefina Komporaly’s translator’s note in which she discusses Mátyus’ unique sense of grammar and syntax, and her own approach to translating it.
Divine Experience or Divine Faith? Veronika Haacker-Lukacs Interviews Translator Jozefina Komporaly
Földényi’s The Glance of the Medusa is an astounding encyclopaedia of ancient and early Christian thought. It invites the reader on a historical, mystical and mythical journey encompassing ancient Greek and Egyptian religions as well as the early Christian Mystics and Gnostics to examine experiences bringing human beings and (the) God(s) into such extreme proximity with each other that one might well merge into the other.
In Pursuit of Happiness in Nándor Gion’s “Soldier with Flower,” Translated from Hungarian by Zsuzsa Koltay
by Jozefina Komporaly Translation projects come about for various reasons, and these can include affinities with certain authors, artistic agendas or historical periods to name but a few. Wanting to raise the profile of a particular literary tradition is also a major motivator, and when this is coupled with the translator’s genuine passion for a […]
Translation as Nourishment: Translator Zsuzsa Koltay in Conversation with Béla Szegedi-Szabó
This is an excerpt from an interview with Zsuzsa Koltay whose translation from Hungarian of Nándor Gion’s Soldier with Flower came out in 2020. The interview was originally published in Hungarian and subsequently translated in English by Owen Good for Hungarian Literature Online. Many thanks to Owen for allowing us to run this excerpt. Reading […]
Coming of Age Inside “A Bell Jar”: Magda Szabó’s “Abigail,” Translated from Hungarian by Len Rix
By Gabi Reigh “Creativity requires a state of grace,” Magda Szabó wrote in her 1987 novel The Door. “So many things are required for it to succeed—stimulus and composure, inner peace and a kind of bitter-sweet excitement.” Szabó’s life was not short of excitement, “bitter-sweet” or otherwise. She lived through the Second World War (which […]