Illegal

The volume Illegal contains two strange short novels. The first story, Guest Play, is based on an exciting and tense dialogue between a lawyer and a young musician suspected of murder, through which Szöllősi unabashedly points out the presence of money, unbridled power, corruption, drugs and everyday racism in today’s Hungarian society. In addition to depicting the aforementioned themes in their brutality, the short story also reveals how someone can become involved, even unintentionally, in the processes they influence, and how they can become a servant or a victim of an already functioning system. The title text of the volume, Illegal, takes us back to the turn of the nineties and two thousandths, starting from the present, and reveals an important and exciting part of the deep layers of underground culture to the reader, evoking the dangerous world of graffiti artists at that time. The subtle depiction of the soul, the thorough presentation of events and thought processes, and the imagery, just like in his previous writings, are all key elements in the new Szöllősi volume. The stories, which take place on multiple levels in both time and space, carefully illustrate how communication in virtual space, which is increasingly intended to replace personal contact, is almost imperceptibly weaving its way into our lives, diverting it to an unmanageable plane, where fears are often unrealistic and emotions are not necessarily fueled by real experiences. With meticulous visuality (based on the photographic approach), Szöllősi creates suffocating, narrow spaces – the suffocating apartments, the linoleum-smelling stairwells of the suburbs, and the sterile interrogation rooms – all of which reflect the characters’ mental state.

Helikon Publisher, Budapest, 2020

Critic on Revizor: https://revizoronline.com/szollosi-matyas-illegal-ket-penteki-tortenet/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53801882-illeg-l

Interview on Fidelio: https://fidelio.hu/konyv/szollosi-matyas-hianyzik-a-nyuzsges-hogy-hallom-el-a-varos-154729.html