Telling the Truth via Fiction: Imre Kertész, Péter Esterházy, and Hungarian Post-1989 Literary Anticommunism

Abstract

ABSTRACT In post-1989 Hungary, as the superstructure of a well-established censorship rapidly collapsed, a huge wave of formerly restricted information refreshed the stagnant water of literary and social culture. Nevertheless, the mainstream of contemporary highbrow belles-lettres began to take a rather apolitical approach towards literary production. Realism as an objectivist literary style and referential mode of representation was felt, after 1989, as too ideological, and thus lost its credibility along with the grand narrative of state socialism. A postmodern canon was soon established and popularized, based on formal experimentation and on the non-referential nature of the literary work. Despite the fact that postmodernism generally rejected realist fiction, Hungarian post-communist mainstream writers felt compelled to address the memory of the communist past. This paper aims to investigate major ethical and aesthetical problems of telling the truth via fiction, focusing on seminal books like The Union Jack, Kaddish for an Unborn Child, and Dossier K. by Imre Kertész; as well as Celestial Harmonies and Javított kiadás (Revised Edition) by Péter Esterházy. Last but not least, the article will analyse the compelling piece Egy történet (A/One Story), written by both the aforementioned authors.