I’ve been writing since the age of eleven. I used to jot down my first poems in a checkered notebook. Then, when I was fifteen, I was given an orange Erika portable typewriter. The typed poems almost looked like the works of a real poet. It was also aged fifteen that my first poem was published in print, in a magazine. It wasn’t a good poem, although now I’m a little more forgiving of my younger self: however the text already bore the early hallmarks of my future poetic persona.

Perhaps its was already an achievement. After all every poet strives for this. To master tradition, inherited forms and gestures, and, by adapting them, develop a voice of their own that is instantly recognizable.
My first collection of poems was published when I was twenty, and most recently my tenth. Since I began my career with poetry, many people have found it convenient to categorise me simply as a poet. This, even though I have written and published in a variety of genres: short stories, novels, plays, children’s stories and song lyrics. Since the mid-2000s, my short story collections, novels, and children’s books have been published alongside my poetry. For me, prose and poetry are not separate; I simply seek the appropriate form for the raw material working within me. If the characters are constantly engaged in dialogue, then it’s likely that the text will become a play. Equally, if an image has been unsettling me for weeks, returning again and again to my mind, then this image or feeling I’ve caught will probably take the shape the of a poem.

I consider structure to be important. Before studying humanities, I majored in sculpture. Even today, the smell of clay fills me with nostalgia and, in a certain sense, I imagine texts as spatial formations. Before we began creating a sculpture—whether it was a figure or a portrait—we would draw sketches. Then we would build the supporting structure before applying the clay to it. If the frame itself wasn’t proportionate, or not sturdy enough, the sculpture wouldn’t turn out right. It’s similar with writing. The text’s structure is the most critical aspect. Sentences and words can be shaped and polished later, but the structure itself is hard to correct.

It took me fifteen years from the outset of my career to become well-enough known to make my passion for writing my single source of income. During those years, I earned my living doing something else. I wanted to do something creative that wouldn’t drain my energy or my enthusiasm for work. Rather it should inspire me and bring me joy. SoI designed, made and repaired stained-glass windows. This craft required physical concentration, precise movements, and creativity- As I worked, I was able to shape and refine stories or lines of poetry taking form in my mind. We’re back to structure: larger surfaces made up of tiny elements required precise planning. I was then able to transfer this kind of construction to prose, creating increasingly larger and more complex prose structures from smaller elements.

Writing is a joy and a passion for me. While I’m thinking about the stories in children’s books, I’m conversing with my own inner child. If I get stuck on a piece of adult prose, I continue the stories I’ve started as a way to relax. Poetry comes rarely and is like a gift. An opening line that pops up in my mind unexpectedly remains a mystery to me to this day. If I manage to convey this secret, this strange glimmer, into the poem, then I am satisfied. But this cannot be forced; one must wait for it.

With forty years of experience behind me, I can confidently say that writing is also a craft. It is a profession whose techniques can be mastered through practice, literary translation, and a great deal of conscious reading. Part of the craft can be taught and learned. When I teach creative writing, I try to focus on this teachable part, without forgetting that passion, drive, and humility are indispensable to creation and cannot be learned. You either have it or you don’t.

When my first book was published in 1989, Hungarian literature was largely a male domain. Things have changed a lot since then, but I’ve never really felt that women in Hungary, in any field—including literature—start out on an equal footing with their male colleagues. This is different to abroad where I’ve had the fortune to have a number of my books translated into over 20 languages. There, I have much less of the impression that an author’s gender, specifically the fact that someone is a woman, constitutes an inherent disadvantage that must be overcome.

Readers often ask me why I write such dark stories. They miss the resolution, the comforting conclusion. They’re right. This is a legitimate and real reader need, which, unfortunately, I cannot satisfy. I want to write stories that are unsettling, thought-provoking, that address issues that concern us all, without offering ready-made answers. In my view, the task of good literature—if it has a task at all—is not to provide answers, but to pose the most difficult questions. To encourage us to think together. I want to write books that, twenty, thirty, or fifty years from now, will help people understand this complex, transitional era in which we happen to live.

I never write about my own life, not even when the reader believes the narrator is the author. Everything that goes from my hand into the wider-world is fiction. My own life is only interesting to my work insofar as I can glean mosaic pieces from it to create another, literary reality. I want to create, not document.

I have countless plans, but time is finite. These days, it’s fashionable to strive to age gracefully. I’d much rather grow young in an ugly way, so I can write a lot more. It’s enough if the works age gracefully. Whether they die afterward is up to the reader: the reader keeps the stories alive.