Endre Kukorelly

Most of his works are autobiographical, but at the same time they are universal because they are human. He often makes the reader laugh and think by illuminating the ridiculousness and meaninglessness of everyday, routine, simple situations in life. The biographical themes that recur in several of his works include: childhood: everyday and family life in a VI. He is also a protagonist of the story of his childhood: everyday life and family life on the third floor of a block of flats in the VI district; football training; holidays at the family’s weekend house; the German student exchange programme; adulthood: military service; university; his (first) job; hospital experiences; the (everyday) experiences of a man from downtown Pest; trips and holidays abroad; women and love. Other: peace – freedom; ’56, “being an East European”, etc.

His sentences are characterised by the use of spoken language elements (as in his thematic), and his sentence and text structure is characterised by ordinariness, spontaneity, unadornedness, conciseness and fragmentation. The tone of his work is often ironic, sometimes disillusioned. His humour is based not only on the subject and the situation, but also on the way he plays with words, sentences: language. The process of writing, the author’s thoughts, associations and memories are revealed as he corrects himself within the text. Thanks to his first person singular verb forms and his pronunciations, he is constantly present, almost talking to the reader. The typical way he constructs his text is as follows: spontaneous (apparently) thought; (quite ordinary) description of experience; general truth or philosophical conclusion, in which he refers back to the initial thought or the experience described.

Are They Still Alive? directed by Gábor Máté was performed in the 2005-2006 season at the Katona József Theatre, Budapest, in the “Kamra” venue.