A literary dialogue that bridges continents
The Petőfi Cultural Agency has launched a new literary journal entitled The Continental Literary Magazine. The primary aim of the quarterly is to bring Hungarian and, more broadly, Central European literature to the United States.
The essential goal of The Continental Literary Magazine, the first issue of which was published in November 2021, is to introduce Hungarian and Central European literature to the global English readership while also creating a platform with which contemporary Hungarian and Central European writers can enter the mainstream of the North American literary market.
In addition to writings by the best authors from our region, The Continental Literary Magazine will also feature works by world-renowned authors of fiction and literary “big names” who publish in English. Translations of texts written in languages other than English are done in close collaboration with the author by a translator whose native tongue is English, thus ensuring that the texts meet the standards of the English-language literary market.
The articles, interviews, and works of literature published in the individual issues of the magazine are organized around a particular theme. The theme of the first issue is prejudice. Among the Hungarian authors in the first issue, one finds Krisztina Tóth, who explores anti-Roma attitudes from the perspective of adoption (“Hail Pariah”), Róbert Hász, who offers a family story from a pub in Vojvodina (“The Polyglot Pub Key”), and János Háy, who considers the advantages of prejudice and discrimination (“The Dog Is Barking”).
One also finds in the first issue names of prominent American writers, including Roxane Gay, author of a bestselling collection of essays entitled Bad Feminist. In her article “Power of No,” Gay reflects on the scandals surrounding two global stars, tennis player Naomi Osaka and gymnast Simone Biles. Writer-journalist Judith Newman, whose articles have been published in some of the most prominent American newspapers (The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Harper’s, The Wall Street Journal, Allure, and Vogue), discusses the rights of wheelchair users to sexuality in “I’m Here, I’m Disabled, Get Used To It.” The article entitled “Indians” by Cheyenne Indian poet Lance Henson is particularly interesting in part because Henson was invited by the editors of the magazine to visit Hungary and meet the so-called Hungarian Indians.
The list of celebrities doesn’t end there. The editors also spoke to Noam Chomsky, a linguistics professor who has become a true pop culture icon. The Hungarian version of the interview, entitle “Cold War 2.0,” is now available on the online world literature portal 1749.
The Continental Literary Magazine has a circulation of 5,500 issues. Of these, 2,500 issues will be sold commercially in the United States. The magazine will be available in 239 Barnes and Noble stores in 41 states in the USA. The remaining 3,000 copies will be sold in part in the Central European region, but the magazine will be available in print and/or online to anyone, and readers can get subscriptions at www.continentalmagazine.com.
The magazine’s mission is to connect continents, and its style, to use the words chosen by its editorial board, is edgy, classy, Central European.
FB: thecontinentalliterarymag
Instagram: thecontinentalliterarymag
Twitter: TCL_Magazine
Youtube: The Continental Literary Magazine
Cover design
The cover is based on an image from the series Squares by Hungarian photographer and artist Ádám Magyar. Photographed from above, the urban human mass captures the theme of the magazine’s first issue and reminds us that prejudice is faceless and not specific to any one ethnic group, but rather lurks in all of us.
Authors included in the issue on PREJUDICE:
Eszter Babarczy (HU)
Noam Chomsky (US)
Tope Folarin (US)
Roxane Gay (US)
Agnieszka Wolny-Hamkalo (SK)
Róbert Hász (HU)
Mila Haugová (SK)
János Háy (HU)
Lance Henson (US)
Marie Iljašenko (UKR)
Sándor Jászberényi (HU)
Hubert Klimko-Dobrzanieczki (PL)
Valzhyna Mort (BY)
Judith Newman (US)
László Szilasi (HU)
Gábor T. Szántó (HU)
Zsuzsa Takács (HU)
Anna Terék (HU)
Kinga Tóth (HU)
Krisztina Tóth (HU)
Marek Vadas (SK)
Tomas Zmeškal (CZ)
The translators:
Sean Gasper Bye (US)
Eugene Brogyanyi (US)
Walter Burgess (CAN)
Nathan Fields (US)
Owen Good (IRL)
Antonia Lloyd-Jones (UK)
John Minahane (IRL)
Marietta Morry (CAN)
Valzhyna Mort (BY)
Julia and Peter Sherwood (SK)
George Szirtes (UK)
Alex Zucker (US)
Masthead:
Sándor Jászberényi – Editor-in-Chief
Thomas Cooper - Editor
Margit Garajszki – Editor
Owen Good – Editor
Shubha Sunder – Editor
Eszter Jászberényi Eszter - Online editor and social media manager
Dániel Németh Lobov – Design and layout
Dániel Levente Pál - Director
Viktória Stift - PR and marketing
Márton Szegedi - Manager
Fonts
Mohol - Ádám Katyi – hungarumlaut.com
Latienne Pro - Mark Jamra - TypeCulture (typeculture.com)
Cover
From the series Squares by photographer and artist Ádám Magyar - Squares, Berlin I (2019)