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Richard Swartz swedish writer and journalist worked for many years as the Eastern European correspondent for the Swedish daily newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet. He is therefore intimately acquainted to not only the political situation, but also the day to day life of various countries in Eastern Central Europe. As a writer he has published a number of books and commentaries (Room Service, A House in Istria) related to his experiences in Eastern Europe. His essays capture various moments of how people lived Communism, how some remember it with nostalgia and what these people can do once the very objects of their past are gone (Room Service). His status as an observer from Sweden, a country with a long history of neutrality makes his observations unique and his insight valuable. These commentaries occupy that rare place where journalism becomes literature and his portraits of individuals artfully convey the spirit of their time and place.
Péter Nádas, the prose writer, playwright and essayist, was born on 14 October, 1942 in Budapest. As he writes in his auto-biography, tension marked his early childhood years due to his family’s Jewish origins and the fact that he was baptised, and also stemming from the contradictions of his parents’ social status (his mother was from a poor family, while his father came from a wealthy one). When recalling these memories, Nádas says it is difficult to discern fantasy from reality, especially since he has no one left to ask about them. He became an orphan at the age of 16. In the summer of 1958, Nádas interrupted his secondary school education and chose to study photography instead. From 1961 to 1963, he worked as photographer at Nők lapja, after which he completed a two-year journalistic course and then underwent military service for two years, and from 1965 to 1967, he studied philosophy in the extra-mural department of Budapest University. From 1965 to 1969, he worked for Pest Megyei Hírlap. He wrote his short-story Biblia in 1962 and has been publishing since 1965. He became a freelance writer in 1965. In 1972, he completed his novel Egy családregény vége, but the censors withheld it and he could only publish it in 1977. In September 1972, he went to East Berlin on a three-month scholarship, returning there in the autumn 1973 and again in 1974, where he attended courses on the history of the turn of century at Humbold University. In the summer of 1973, he began work on the first variation of his Emlékiratok könyve. From 1974 to 1979, he worked in the reader service of the pedagogical journal, Gyermekünk, from 1980 to 1981, he worked as editor at Kisfaludy Theatre, and from 1989 to 1990, he was a full-time contributor to the literary journal, Magyar Napló. From January 1981 to February 1982, he lived in West-Berlin on a DAAD scholarship, where he continued work on his novel. In the nineties, he went frequently to Germany, where he gave lectures and helped Hildegard Grosche to translate his Emlékiratok könyve. Péter Nádas’s writing, from his first short story at the age of twenty, opposed the ideology of agreement between writers and the Communist regime. According to one of his later statements, he turned back to childhood as topic for his books, because he could analyse “the human being, as he was”, without worrying about complying with society. His way of thinking and artistic point of view permits internal freedom, and results in a questioning of the monolithic nature of Communist ideology. 1968: the dispersing of the French student-demonstrations and the Prague Autumn were shattering experiences for him and in an open letter in 1969, he protested against the restricting provisions of cultural politics. Because of this, the publication of his works was hindered for eight years. Since the beginning of the eighties, he has been one of the best-known and most translated and interpreted Hungarian writers. With the autonomous spirit of his writing, his rich Western-European intellectual connections, and his open political statements, he suggested and actively assisted in the change of political system in Hungary. The enthusiastic reception of his work is one of the richest chapters in European self-identity. Currently Péter Nádas lives in a small village called Gombosszeg in the Western part of Hungary and is working on completing his newest novel „Párhuzamos történetek”.
