International Book Festival to Host Celebrated Authors from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland

He moved his entire being when he wrote, he surrendered himself to the writing: Do with me what you will, you have found a partner – it is no accident that he called writing monastic work. – Viktória Radics bids farewell to Péter Nádas.

The world-renowned writer, playwright and essayist died on 26 August at his home in Gombosszeg.

The Association of Hungarian Book Publishers and Distributors will host the 31st Budapest International Book Festival from 1 to 4 October this year, where Irish author Colm Tóibín will be the guest of honor.

"It is hard to consider the absence of Colours and Years from set reading lists and not read it as an expression of the belief that women’s fates – especially when told by women – do not belong in the core canon." – Hanna Zelma Horányi continues her Starter Pack series with an introduction of Margit Kaffka's Colours and Years.

The second in our mini-series of mini-reviews from Élet és Irodalom's Ex Libris column, László Tunyogi reviews Renátó Fehér's latest work of prose-poetry, The Golden Age of Assassins.

"color matters, all that swirling force, / and detail too, you need a starting point, / a mite inside the unfathomable, / a touch of human within the divine." – Two poems from Júlia Lázár, in Dani Dányi's translation.

We kick off HLO's new mini-series of mini-reviews with a brief word from László Tunyogi on Péter Bognár's latest work, May Death Ride to Persia!, writing for the Ex Libris column of volume LXX, issue 32 of Élet és Irodalom.

Looking for an excuse to stay indoors and out of the scorching sun? Or perhaps a reason to lay out in the grass and soak up some rays? Either way, HLO's list of summer reads has you covered!

"A powerful family drama about marriage, motherhood, and the brutal cost of survival," Black Heart is the English-language debut of master of Hungarian folk horror and thrillers, Péter Fritsi. Translated by Austin Wagner.

A slinking, muddy, roadside horror of a tale from Péter Fritsi, master of all things dark, creepy, and Hungarian, translated by Milán Potkovácz.

"[Terék's] voice becomes even more pared down and condensed; her poems begin to balance on the threshold of utterability even as the thematic focus – trauma, memory, body, feminine experience, loss – persists throughout." – A review of Anna Terék's 2026 verse novel, Ice, by Róbert Bak.

"These small changes are worth making not only for the sake of others, but for our own sake as well. ... Measure – in all things – was what we lost first." HLO interviews the author of The Art of Beekeeping, Tibor Weiner Sennyey.

"Nowhere you are. How empty is the world. / A garden chair, recliner aside hurled. / Amongst sharp stones my shadow clinks a sound. / I am tired. I stick out from the ground." János Pilinszky's Apocryph, translated by Kinga Williams.

"The short story cycle of Landscape Before Gunshot invites us into the everyday life of a Budapest housing project. We are in a menacing near future of barbed-wire perimeters, vanishing animals, and the rumbling of military vehicles. […] a dystopia in which we are horrified to recognize the none-too-unlikely future of our very own present.” – Csaba Baranyák reviews Eszter T. Molnár's 2025 short story collection Landscape Before Gunshot.

In this extensive essay and teaser to her recently released book, More and Less than a Friend: The Songwriting Partnership of Tamás Cseh and Géza Bereményi in Hungary, Diana Senechal gives us an in-depth look at the process of translating the songs of what is perhaps Hungary's most iconic musical duo.

We continue our focus on July's author of the month, Eszter T. Molnár, with two original-English poems simply bursting with the bustling darkness of (human?) nature.

The new academic volume, edited by Péter Hajdú and Zoltán Z. Varga, synthesizes contemporary research on world literature while introducing Hungarian literature's 'worldliness' to an international readership. 

Five novels (some available in English, others waiting to be translated) – written not by Krasznahorkai and still suitable for everyone who loved his works.

"On paper, these are characters we wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot-pole, but in Molnár’s capable hands, they become complex, believable characters with demons and dreams in equal measure. In a word, they become real." – A portrait of Eszter T. Molnár.