if i only knew...

Imre Kertesz, a Hungarian

Imre Kertesz, a Hungarian author won the Nobel Prize for literature yesterday. The book is Fateless, a striking account of the Holocaust in Hungary, the events drawn from Kertesz' own life. He was one of the few Auschwitz and Buchenwald refugees who survived the horrors of the Holocaust. Only two of his novels have been published in English, Fateless (see above) and Kaddish for a Child Not Born. These jumped to the top of amazon's bestseller lists within hours of the announcement, Fateless was #1, currently #2, the two editions of Kaddish... also both in the top 25 (#10 and #22 at the moment).

Now this will finally - hopefully - put Hungarian literature on the shelves of bookstores around the world, because it has been very neglected so far. In Germany and Austria, Sandor Marai (Embers, Memoir of Hungary, 1944-1948
) has been leading bestseller lists recently, and Peter Eszterhazy's (in stock at amazon: A Little Hungarian Pornography, She Loves Me) books have also recently been published in German. But that still leaves much of the Hungarian classics in the shade, so i will mention a few names here hoping that you will check them out:
My favourite poet ever is Dezso Kosztolanyi, and while amazon doesn't seem to have any of his poetry in stock, read one of his novels, Anna Edes to get an insight into a slice of 20th century Hungarian history. If you ever come across Kosztolanyi poems, read and absorb them!
Krudy Gyula and Zsigmond Moricz are also some of my top picks for entering the world of Hungarian literature.