Overview
- He made his first public appearance outside Hungary since winning the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature, speaking at Barcelona’s CCCB on Feb. 25–26.
- He said humanity has always lived in an ongoing apocalyptic condition, echoing both Susan Sontag’s earlier label for his work and the Nobel committee’s citation.
- He criticized technocrats and authoritarian leaders, naming Elon Musk and Vladimir Putin, alluding to Viktor Orbán, and warned that Hungarians might need to flee if the April 12 elections do not bring change.
- He framed his fiction around poverty and dignity rather than mere misery, defended high art against popular “trinkets,” and invoked his late collaborator Béla Tarr in articulating that moral focus.
- He described worsening pain in his left writing hand, reaffirmed his preference for pen, paper, or typewriter, and tied the visit to the imminent Spanish publication of Herscht 07769 by Acantilado.