One of the great rewards of organising events with writers is the unexpected magic, Llewellyn says. It happened at the World Voices Festival with Peter Esterhazy, a Hungarian writer little-known in New York. Esterhazy is the author of a novel, Celestial Harmonies, which is also a family history. He told how when he had finished writing the novel, he was invited to an institute which held the old Communist secret police dossiers, and was offered four files to read. When he turned the page, he saw his father’s handwriting. Unknown to him, his father had worked for the secret police for 23 years.
“Everyone was stunned,” Llewellyn says. “It was one of the most extraordinary things I’ve ever seen, like watching someone have open-heart surgery. People had to leave, they were so moved. I was crying.”
Before that session, people were saying, “Who’s Peter Esterhazy?” Afterwards, everyone was booking into all his sessions.
Gefunden in: The Age
