Áron Bartal

What was your favorite book as a child?

The Little Prince. It just felt so unique, even back then, and it only aged more gracefully. In my teens, I discovered A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami, which set me off on a magical realist literary journey that is still continuing, and The Little Prince is most likely the culprit for why I gravitated so well. Surrealism and surrealist stories have always attracted me more than realists, as they bend everything for the sake of what matters to me in a story. You need something visually interesting, put it there, something that might be a little weird, but would tell a good story, don’t worry about the physics of it. The Little Prince was the first to really embrace that and showed me the deeper levels of literature you can reach.

What was the original reason or motivation why you started writing creatively?

Funnily enough, homework. We had a class in school where we had to write a short story around an idiom, and I got so invested in it that I overshot the word count. If I wanted to be real analytical, I could say I fell in love with the craft first and only then realised what it can do. I got so popular, other kids started writing sequels to my assignments.

What was the most adventurous or thrilling thing you ever did/experienced?

I have done a lot of dangerous things, so I don’t think adventurous is the correct word for them. You’ll have to wait to get those out of me. At 14, I went to live in England, when my English was definitely not the most eloquent, while my parents stayed home in Slovakia. So I have a lot of memories where I wander small English towns by myself. I have a lot of travel experience in general. I lived in five countries before the age of 21 (in four of those, I lived away from my parents, who love me very much, I just liked experiencing different places, and they obliged) and visited like thirty.

Do you listen to music while reading or writing?

I tried while reading, but couldn’t. When writing, sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. It depends on my mood. If I listen to something, it’s most likely the Paradise Killer soundtrack, Nujabes, and George Harrison. Though sometimes the surrounding sound lets me concentrate better.