I’m the Guest of Honor at the 2023 Budapest International Book Festival
Posted on May 3, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 23 Comments
For those of you who can’t read Hungarian, which admittedly includes me, this is what the article screenshot above says, via Google Translate:
John Scalzi will be the guest of honor at this year’s Book Festival
The Budapest International Book Festival, which is now being held for the 28th time, is a noted event of the international book world, the defining professional and cultural forum of the region. This year’s book meeting will take place between September 28 and October 1 at the Millenár, and we can welcome the Netherlands as the country of honor of the event.
The article also notes that in addition to being the guest of honor at the Budapest International Book Festival, I will also be receiving the Budapest Grand Prix from the mayor of Budapest.
How do I feel about all of this? Hugely honored and delightfully befuddled. Last year’s guest of honor was a Nobel Prize winner, Svetlana Alexandrovna, and some previous guests of honor have included Salman Rushdie, Umberto Eco, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jonathan Franzen and Paulo Coelho. That’s a heady group with which to keep company.
I have been to Budapest before, in 2019, to appear at a different book festival, and had just a tremendous time. The people at the book fair were lovely, and the city is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever been to. I’m very much looking forward to returning and seeing friends and book lovers there once again.
Budapest, see you soon!
— JS
Eastern European countries have long held science fiction in much higher esteem than it achieves in the West, so in a way this is not at all surprising. I’d say being in the company of Lem and the Strugatskys is a fine place to be.
Enjoy the event. I’ve been to Budapest twice with family as both my parents are from Hungary. Beautiful capital and country.
Hey, you’ll be there on my birthday! I’ll take that as a virtual celebration on my behalf (joke). In youth I read books by Kate Seredy, so that’s about all I know about Hungary, an idyllic pastoral countryside with strong handsome men, women in full skirts, rosy-cheeked children, and lots of fine horses. It’s possible this was all pretty stereotypical.
Congratulations, John to our fellow Ohioan and our favorite sci-fi novelist! A great honor, to be sure! Here hoping this finds you safe and well.
Safe travels.
All the best (Wszystkiego najlepszego),
John and Deb
Caldwell Ohio
Obligatory reference:
“You and I remember Budapest very differently.”
Budapest is a pretty awesome city. Make sure to take in the baths (I preferred the Széchenyi Thermal Bath to the Gellert Baths, YMMV), and the Ruins district for dining and drinking. Best meal I had was at Rosenstein Vendéglő, a little upscale with Jewish cuisine as its major influence.
Maybe I should go. My father’s side of the family is Hungarian and a friend has offered me use of her family’s apartment in Budapest.
Holy FRACK! I think this is so awesome! But Grand Prix… are you going to have to drive a race car through the city? :)))
First: congratulations. Second: are you concerned at all about going to an even in a country veering into fascism with a leader spreading anti-semitism and anti-LGBTQ hatred & working to export it to the rest of the Europe? I swear, I’m not trying to be a dick and I don’t know what I’d do in your shoes. I’ve also always wanted to visit Budapest, it sounds like a cool city.
I probably wouldn’t go now, but also I’m one of the people Orban wants to wipe out.
John W:
“a country veering into fascism with a leader spreading anti-semitism and anti-LGBTQ hatred”
This could be Florida.
Or the US between Jan. 20 2017 and Jan. 20 2021.
Hungary’s political situation is worse than the US and got there years earlier. My kid studied abroad in Budapest in 2012, and Orban was cementing his power and getting rid of legal/constitutional protections much more quickly than would possible here. The levels of anti-Roma prejudice and antisemitism were getting scary (remember, a lot of Hungary’s Jews ended up exterminated by the Nazis and their collaborators). Kid absolutely loved their time studying there, but we wouldn’t have felt safe sending them a few years later.
And no, I’m not planning on visiting Texas or Florida any time soon either.
Congratulations John! This is a great and well-deserved honor.
Enjoy your trip to the festival!
Budapest is a great city with lots of sightseeing and amazing restaurants. You cannot go five yards without stumbling over history at every corner.
Unluckily Hungary is currently a problematic country. Or more precise: the current government is. Orban is probably a role model for people like DeSantis or Trump. The hostility against LBTQ from the government side is appalling. Also Hungary is doing everything to block support for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia.
I expect the Budapest International Book Festival not to be full of Orban supporters, though there were attempts by the regime to capitalise on that event in the past: https://hungarianfreepress.com/2017/04/15/orhan-pamuk-dont-be-orbans-poster-boy/
As a Hungarian I can confirm that the Hungarian government is disgusting. Most of the citizens of Budapest, however are firmly opposed to Viktor Orbán”s regime and the mayor of Budapest is one of the leading figures of the admittedly feeble and not very resourceful opposition
Hungary and Viktor Orbán are very supportive of Israel. Hungary stands virtually alone in its pro- and philo-semitism among EU nations.
During WWII, Hungary overall was noncooperative with the Nazis for the longest time, and only caved in when the Nazis put their jackbooted feet down.
Your delighted befuddlement is so endearing. Of COURSE you deserve a place in all the best companies.
Very awesome – congratulations!!
Enjoy Budapest – it’s a beautiful city!
Back when I was stationed in West Germany I couldn’t legally go to Budapest or any communist country that was part of the anti-NATO Warsaw Pact. Now I can.
I checked: Kate Perry’s music video Firework was filmed there.
@ william e emba:
“Hungary and Viktor Orbán are very supportive of Israel. Hungary stands virtually alone in its pro- and philo-semitism among EU nations.”
Anti-Semitism and support for the state of Israel are not mutually exclusive. Conversely, being pro-Israel has nothing do do with philo-Semitism.
Vide: GOP white supremacists, many of whom are passionate and outspoken Anti-Semites, also happen to be quite vocal pro-Israel advocates. Also vide: Richard Spencer.
“Jews will not replace us” and “the future is white” complement the “let them stay where they are” worldview quite nicely. Besides, Israel’s apartheid policies and awful things like the Lehava movement have drawn admiration from “western” fascists, who see them as a blueprint for implementing their own delusions of “racial purity”.
“During WWII, Hungary overall was noncooperative with the Nazis for the longest time, and only caved in when the Nazis put their jackbooted feet down.”
Sorry, that too is a bunch of horse apples.
Hungary did not “cave in” to the Nazis. They were Nazi allies from the get-go.
Hungarian fascists (and communists) made very efficient use of their own jackboots to murder, expel, and terrorize Hungary’s Jewish population years before Hitler held his first beer hall rally.
History can be gruesome, but also fascinating. I suggest picking up a book about it from time to time.
I will partly walk back my historical claims. Hungary had Nazi-style race laws and enforced murderously brutal forced labor and about 20k were deported to their deaths. That stopped in mid-1941. It was easier for refugees to stay in Hungary than Switzerland.
The main Hungarian Holocaust was after the Nazis invaded and took over Hungary in 1944, installing their own puppet government which happily obeyed Nazi orders.
Yes, there are right-wingers who love Israel. But it’s not philo-semitism on their part, it is part of their pro-apocalypse mania. A prominent example is Sarah Palin and the Rapture.
Distinguishing between anti-Israel and anti-Jew is a technicality most anti-semites are unaware of. Spikes in anti-semitic attacks follow anti-Israel news and influencers. It is no different than the recent spikes in anti-Asian crimes, fanned by the haters who hide behind similar technicalities, like COVID-19 and Wuhan.
What I’d suggest Our Gracious Host do, for what it’s worth:
Go to Budapest.
Praise all the good that remains, but
Without being a jerk, and with the consent of the people who might get into trouble for getting you there, as vocally as possible be very clear as to that of which he definitely does not approve.
Get to know some people in trouble there now or soon, and help them to the extent you can once you’re safely home.
@ william e emba:
“Hungary had Nazi-style race laws and enforced murderously brutal forced labor and about 20k were deported to their deaths. That stopped in mid-1941.”
My dude, you still seem hella confused by this whole history business. I suggest perusing free and readily available Holocaust archives, e.g. Yad Vashem. It’ll take about 10 minutes of googling, and it’s nasty reading material.
Hungary was a fascist, Jew-murdering state since the 1920s. It joined the Axis in 1940. Hungarian soldiers fought side by side with other fascist/Nazi soldiers, rounding up and executing Jews and other “undesirables” in occupied territories well past 1941, which you seem fixated upon.
Hungarians were every bit as culpable in the Holocaust as the Germans were. They happily “obeyed Nazi orders” well before 1944. The fact that things got worse for Hungarian Jews after the “occupation” does not negate the crimes Hungarians committed against Jews did prior to 1944, going all the way back to the 1800s.
“Distinguishing between anti-Israel and anti-Jew is a technicality most anti-semites are unaware of.”
You don’t know what “most Anti-Semites” are aware of or not, and in any case this is irrelevant to the point you attempted to make.
Your original statement equated support for Israel with philo-Semitism, which we very clearly debunked as untrue. Viktor Orban, a right-wing authoritarian (i.e. a fascists who still pays lip service to law and due process), expresses support for Israel, admiring what he interprets as Israel’s racial purity policies, while running a reelection campaign rife with openly Anti-Semitic messaging and imagery.
Anti-Semitism is as Hungarian as goulash. No reason to pretend otherwise.