1749.HU has been Launched!

At the end of April, a new literature portal opened which offers an important contribution to cultural life in Hungary. 1749.hu, which was founded by the Petőfi Literary Fund, provides a unique window onto literary history and culture today, since the site focuses specifically and solely on world literature. The name of the portal, indeed, is an allusion precisely to this concept, since it was the great German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who embraced and popularized the notion of “Weltliteratur,” or world literature, and Goethe was born in 1749.

As Gábor Lanczkor, editor-in-chief of the website, explains, “with the launch of 1749.hu, we seek to fill the yawning void which was created when earlier journals which focused on world literature ceased publication. We have created this portal in order to provide Hungarian readers with inspiring works of world literature and, in doing so, to offer a rich selection of works to the public.”

From the perspective of genre, the palette is remarkably diverse. Alongside translations of contemporary works of prose and poetry, the portal also offers essays, critical reviews, and interviews. As Dávid Zelei, one of the editors of the website has said, “our hope is that 1749.hu will be a high-quality product which will satisfy the tastes of world literature gourmets. We seek to capture the attention of readers who are interested in the newest developments in world literature by making available works of belle-lettres, writings from an array of popular genres, and materials one might expect to find in magazines (interviews, lists of best works, fresh news and the like), while at the same time, we address the narrower readership of literature specialists with critical reviews, essays, and scholarly articles.”

There is no more eloquent evidence of this intention than the simple fact that, on 1749.hu, readers will find writings from authors like the Chilean Roberto Bolaño and the American John Ashbery alongside poems translated from Turkish and Russian short stories, and in the section with critical essays and reviews, there are discussions of works by some of the most prominent authors in world literature today, such as Michel Houellebecq, Margaret Atwood (author of the immensely successful The Testaments), and Japanese author Murakami Haruki, one of the most widely-read authors of our times.

Zita Izsó, another one of the editors at the portal, adds that, “We will also provide an array of publications which complement the online materials, as well as a ‘best of’ anthology, which we will put out every year in partnership with the Jelenkor Publishing House.”

So join us as we embark and follow the currents of literary life today, from New York to the Antarctic, from China to Trinidad, and travel the length and breadth of world literature!

www.1749.hu