Discussion with: Evelin Márton – writer, Daniel Warmuz – translator, Zośka Papużanka – moderator 

About the Book

What book would you take to a desert island?
Dżemme chooses an encyclopedia—when not tending to the cemetery, gazing at the endless horizon, or conversing with seals. But Solea Minor is no ordinary deserted island. It’s also home to an eccentric shopkeeper, his feline-like wife, and a host of other strange inhabitants who form their own quirky clans.
This last remnant of Earth, preserved after the end of history, follows rules all its own. But everything changes when a prophecy is fulfilled and the blue-eyed E’Lam arrives. Will he and Dżemme find a common language? And will the solitary cemetery keeper dare to believe in miracles?

Evelin Márton’s lyrical, grotesque, and darkly humorous novel is a meditation on loneliness, fate, the search for truth, and the struggle with “insane desires.” The dystopian world of Solea Minor speaks just as easily to the fate of forgotten communities as it does to life in a post-pandemic world exposed to new and looming threats.

About the authors

Evelin Márton (born 1980)  is a writer, journalist, and editor for the literary magazine Helikon. She studied art history at Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca and was an athlete in her youth. After living in Bucharest for several years, she declared, “My homeland is language; I can take it with me everywhere, wherever I go, because it lives within me.”
She debuted in 2008 with the short story collection Bonjour Leibowitz. Her other works include Macskaméz (Cat’s Honey, 2011), the novels Papírszív (Paper Heart, 2012) and Szalamandrák éjszakái (Nights of Salamanders, 2015, translated into Romanian), and most recently Farkashab (Wolf Foam, 2022).
Márton has received several accolades, including the László Csiki Award (2016), the Award for Activity for Contemporary Transylvanian Hungarian Culture (2017), and the Zsigmond Kemény Scholarship (2019).

Daniel Warmuz (born 1987) is a Polish-Hungarian philologist and a graduate of Jagiellonian University. He spent several years living in Budapest, where he also completed postgraduate studies in literary translation at the Balassi Institute. He researches, translates, and promotes Hungarian literature, and is the author of scholarly articles, essays, and reviews. His interests include contemporary literature, theater, and translation studies. In 2013, he appeared in the theatrical performance 174/B. Az igazság szolgái (174/B. In the Service of Justice) with the PanoDráma theatre group. Warmuz is a two-time winner of the translation competition organized by the Sándor Petőfi Museum of Literature in Budapest (2013, 2015), and recipient of the Adam Włodek Award from the Wisława Szymborska Foundation (2019). In 2022, he was awarded the Angelus Central European Literary Award for translators for his Polish rendition of Zoltán Mihály Nagy’s novel Satan’s Spawn (Szatański pomiot).