Kertész: Talk Of Dictatorship In Hungary “Empty, Ideological”
- 13 Nov 2014 8:00 AM
To call Hungary a dictatorship today is “empty ideological language”, Nobel-prize laureate Imre Kertész has said. In an interview to The Hungarian Quarterly published in April 2014 – a translation of which has recently appeared in the Hungarian press – the Hungarian author said that a journalist from the New York Times (NYT) had come to him last year “with the intention of getting me to say that Hungary is a dictatorship today which it isn’t”.
“That only means that he has no idea what a dictatorship is. If you can write, speak openly, openly disagree, even leave the country, it is absurd to speak of a dictatorship,” Kertész said in the Quarterly’s interview. “I am not pleased with everything happening in Hungary.
I do not think there was ever a time when I was pleased with everything happening here but certainly Hungary is no dictatorship.
This is empty ideological language to call Hungary a dictatorship today. And the interview was never published, which a friend of mine very accurately said is a kind of censorship.”
Source www.hungarymatters.hu
Follow that link to sign-up for MTI’s twice-daily newsletter.
LATEST NEWS IN community & culture