Inventing new Boundaries of East and West in Szaturnuszi mesék 1 (Saturnian Tales 1 2023) by Gábor Lanczkor

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Hungarian interest in the Orient covers more than two hundred years of intellectual history. This interest in the earlier centuries depended on the immediate tasks of nation building, which affected political and literary formations. The work of János Háy and László Krasznahorkai in the 1990s and early 2000s is interwoven with the Hungarian interest in the Orient and with the renewed postmodern interest in travel literature, essays and imaginary travels. The poetry, prose and essays written by Gábor Lanczkor, Roland Orcsik, Anna Szabó T. and Krisztina Tóth also cover new geo-cultural spaces (India, the Middle East, China, Japan, Alexandria, Moorish Spain) with different sensibilities in history and everyday life.
The paper takes up Gábor Lanczkor’s new novel Saturnian Tales 1 (2023) that combines a number of genres: travelogue, archaeological description, epigraphs, poetry and diary. In many ways it reminds the reader of Imre Kertész’s Galley-Boat Log (Gályanapló) specially in its work on self-analysis, self-interpretation through dreams. Lanczkor’s novel invents new boundaries which reflect his involvement with India: in the narrative of the diaries of his dreams and in his associations, the Káli Basin near Balaton and Darjeeling in the Himalayas, Kiskunhalas and Saraya in Uttar Pradesh in India touch and exist through a magnetic pull. The paper explores the dynamics of reimagining boundaries in the context of coexistence of various genres, intellect and sensuality.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Margit Köves is teaching Hungarian in Delhi University. She has an MA degree in Russian, Turkish and Hungarian, and a Ph.D. in Central Asian Buddhism. Her book “Buddhism Among the Turks in Central Asia” was published in 2009. She is interested in Indian and Hungarian Cultural Encounters in the work of novelist, artists, playwrights and poets. She edited and co-translated collections of Hungarian prose and poetry into Hindi.