Interviews

Zoltán Böszörményi arrived in Toronto without the command of the language or any marketable skills and with $25 in his pocket. A few years and a college degree later he was running his own business. But it was not there that he made his first million. by Adam Jakab, RTL Klub Fokusz

Why did you wait twenty-five years with your first published novel? Even as a teenager I already knew I wanted to be a writer. Back then though I approached the craft impulsively and emotionally. The content and ideas appeared to have a secondary role. I did not try to learn from the great classics of Hungarian literature. I read poetry  primarily with my soul, not my mind. My thoughts and thus my work were shaped by some kind of a universal agony and despair, and it took me a long time to break out of their spell. I read voraciously, everything I could lay my hands on, especially Tolstoy and Dostoyevski. But I also got acquainted with American, French, Italian, and Spanish literature. But from even those masterpieces it was only the mood, the longing, the bitter taste of tragedy that seeped into my consciousness.

Zoltán Böszörményi is a well-turned-out, good-looking Western-style businessman. His appearance shows he attracts not only money but women, too.

What prompts a poet to turn to prose, namely a novel? I did not start out a poet. At the age of seventeen I contributed short stories to a children’s magazine, “Napsugár”, in Kolozsvár. Tibor Bálint and Sándor Fodor, two noted writers and editors of the time encouraged me and helped me get into print. And yet poetry became my favorite form of expression. Thus I switched my allegiance to Aladár Lászloffy who said, pointing at Tibor Bálint bent over his typewriter: you see, writing prose involves a lot more work than poetry. And he approved of my choice.

He started out studying ballet in Transylvania, he arrived in Canada with $25 in his pocket, and presently he’s a multimillionaire business man living in Monaco. After the Eastern-European regime changes he went on to increase his wealth in Romania. A few years ago he decided to become the patron of Hungarian literature. And in the meantime he also wrote his first novel.

“It reads like a novel,” one could easily say about Zoltán Böszörményi’s life story. The author started out in Transylvania, went through the basement torture chambers of the feared Securitate (Romanian Secret Police), and then emigrated overseas. Returning to his native land much later he established a daily paper for the smaller Hungarian communities scattered over five counties of Romania (in an area that had lacked such service) in addition to a Hungarian literary journal with the largest circulation anywhere in the world.

Conversation with Zoltán Böszörményi UFI by B. Sz.

Interview with Zoltán Böszörményi by Jozsef Hevesi Monár, Nyugati Jelen.