Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I was born in Transylvania, as a Hungarian ethnic minority child – and I have spent the first nineteen years of my life under Ceausescu’s communist dictatorship. After I finished my high school and University studies, a PhD project brought me to the United Kingdom – and I ended up settling here. Due to my origins, I am treated to all the possible and impossible Dracula jokes, but at least my Halloweens are made very easy…
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Ears – it is autobiographical, and it chronicles the period spent under the dictatorship, followed by the surreal years after the 1989 Revolution in Romania, when rapid and dramatic social changes produced situations that often managed to beat fiction… At the same time, I wanted to highlight some surprising parallels between my former and newly adopted home. Whilst observing the onset of the so-called War on Terror, I was quite intrigued by the similarities in certain methods used by very different political regimes…
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Not sure whether it is unusual, but music has to be present – either in the room, or in headsets, depending on the location. For some reason, silence ruins my concentration – and ever since my school years, I have been using music for studying and for the more creative times…
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Ray Bradbury, Salman Rushdie, Nikos Kazantsakis and Philip K. Dick are perhaps the most influential.
What are you working on now?
A few short stories, the ideas existed for a long while, but somehow haven’t managed to really put them down on paper – well, on computer disc…
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I find readers & authors forums very useful – it takes effort, but instead of just mechanical “plugging” of a book, there can be genuine interactions and discussions.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Not to worry too much about current trends… Maybe it sounds simplistic, but the various fads online and in “real” bookshops just reduce the chances of an honest output. Of course, it will be more difficult to market the book, but unless one is writing primarily for making money, the personal satisfaction will be greater.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
To treat the story that is taking shape as something that takes me to other places and entertains me – and then if others like it, that is a bonus. Under no circumstance consider first what others may or may not like…
What are you reading now?
Actually I am re-reading Umberto Eco’s volume of essays and articles entitled Faith in Fakes.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Now that the 25th anniversary of the 1989 Revolution is approaching rapidly, I plan to spend more time talking about the latest book, whilst also taking a journey to my former home country.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantsakis, Fury by Salman Rushdie, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick
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