Gábor Zoltán: Whisperings of the walls
– Hungary
Born in 1960, Gábor Zoltán is a stage director, editor and an author. He has a degree in stage direction and has co-operated primarily with alternative theatrical groups. He later joined Hungarian Radio as a correspondent and subsequently as a full staff member. He has authored many radio plays and produced and directed numerous literary programmes. In 1997, he published his first collection titled Vásárlók kőnyve (A Book of Customers). In 2010, he finally gathered the courage to write about a topic that has been laid open before him in the Városmajor neighbourhood in the 12th Budapest city district, where he lived. Indeed, the Maros street was a place of a brutal massacre committed between 1944 and 1945 by the fascist Arrow-Cross Party. Zoltán’s years of research culminated in a very successful novel titled Orgia (Orgy) published in 2016. The critics as well as contemporary writers praised the novel for the choice of topic as well as its style. Teri Szűcs wrote: “I consider this novel to be one of the most important recent literary pieces. The novel is notable for transforming historical research in a work of literature, which is an extremely difficult job requiring an unimaginable attention to detail.” The novel Szomséd (Neighbours, 2018) is simultaneously a sequel and a prequel to Orgy. The author tries to understand what could have led to the bloody events and walks in the footsteps of past and present neighbours such as Sándor Márai, Pál Jávor and György Solti, as well as a number of otherwise unknown people.