János Háy, after a childhood in rural Hungary, spent his student years in Budapest. The collapse of Communism in 1989 made possible the publication of his first book—a volume of poems and drawings that begins, “No person named János Háy exists.” Since then, he has become a celebrated author of over two dozen volumes of fiction and poetry, and his plays are frequently staged at home and abroad. His recent collection of highly personal essays on Hungarian writers from the sixteenth century to the present, seen through a contemporary prism, is as popular as it is controversial. (updated 10/2021)