How did this story originate? What inspirations did you draw on?

I mention in an endnote that it’s very loosely inspired by the Hungarian folk ballad about Kelemen the Stonemason—in some versions, titled “The Wife of Kelemen the Stonemason.” In the ballad, Kelemen and his workers are building the walls of Déva Castle in present-day Romania, but every night the walls collapse and they have to start over. To break this curse, they decide to sacrifice the first person who comes to visit them, and end up murdering Kelemen’s unnamed wife. When her young son comes to find her, her spirit cries to him from the walls.

I was terribly confused by this story as a child. They essentially made Kelemen’s wife into a quasi-immortal castle that could speak! How awesome is that? Surely someone would have volunteered if the masons had just bothered to ask enough people! The story arises from this tension. To some people, it seems self-evident that they could—and would—become city; to others it is horrible, unfathomable.

The other theme of antisemitic blood libel comes into the story because it is hard to write anything with an even vaguely Eastern European setting involving ostensible human sacrifice while trying to ignore how historically Jews were often accused of human sacrifice in the region and persecuted accordingly. I was curious if there were any specific links between construction sacrifice types of murder ballads and other folk traditions, and antisemitic blood libel—and I indeed found some folkloristics research about this that’s linked at the end of the story, discussing the Hungarian population of the city of Zenta/Senta in present-day Serbia. The events and characters in my story are entirely fictional, and so is the setting.

Is there anything you want to make sure readers noticed?

I didn’t put it into the story, but I think it might be interesting for people to find it here: there is a Hungarian rock opera version of the murder ballad. Youtube has a rather low-quality recording of the original staging from the 1980s (bit.ly/3EQamg6), performed almost entirely by half-naked men with mustaches. (Not an exaggeration.) This version is more elaborate and it gives the wife a name too: Anna. Another interesting fact about this adaptation is that the two authors of the rock opera went on to espouse diametrically opposite political views after the fall of the Communist regime in 1989. There is also a 2013 version (bit.ly/3Zgqr6S), which I have yet to watch!

What are you reading lately? What writers inspire you?

I’m currently reading the anthology Infinite Constellations edited by Khadijah Queen and K. Ibura. It’s a great mix of literary-leaning speculative fiction, speculative-leaning literary fiction, a lot of poetry, and even some literary nonfiction—and it all fits together.

I recently enjoyed When I Sing, Mountains Dance by the Catalan novelist, poet and visual artist Irene Solà (which I read in Hungarian translation by Krisztina Nemes, but it’s also available in English). This novel hasn’t been marketed as speculative at all, but it is suffused with magic in the plain sense of the word. I feel that it absolutely has a crossover SFF audience, especially with the recent rise of rural fantasy.

When it comes to new and upcoming novels, I’m looking forward to reading Liar, Dreamer, Thief by Maria Dong—I think her short fiction is awesome. I also can’t wait for Assassin of Reality, the sequel to Vita Nostra by Marina and Serhiy Dyachenko, translated by Julia Meitov Hersey. This is especially interesting given that Vita Nostra had two conceptual sequels not yet available in English that I read in Hungarian translation, and I really enjoyed them, especially volume 3 of the trilogy (Migrant). But this new book is going to be a direct sequel, with the same protagonist. I’m also excited about reading Sonia Sulaiman’s debut short story collection Muneera and the Moon, which just arrived in my mail yesterday! Now she’s also editing an anthology of Palestinian speculative stories that I hope to read as soon as it comes out.

What trends in speculative fiction would you like to see gain popularity in the next few years?

I would like to see more translations beyond just a token amount, but I can get even more specific than that. Even besides the huge disparities in translation from non-Western languages and countries compared to Western ones, there is a further factor. Often the books that do get translated are the most canonical and hegemonic works from a given country—and that’s not necessarily what I’d like to read. I think in non-genre fiction there have been initiatives to translate women, writers who belong to minorities in their countries of origin, etc., but in SFF, this has been much less pronounced. Trans writers in particular seldom if ever get translated, which I found aggravating when editing trans year’s bests—I can’t reprint what hasn’t been published! I sadly haven’t seen this change much since then.

What are you working on lately? Where else can fans look for your work?

My second short story collection titled Power to Yield and Other Stories is coming soon from Broken Eye Books. I sold it at auction without an agent, which was nerve-wracking! I can also be found on Patreon (bit.ly/3ZfDQfE), Instagram (@bogiperson), and lately I’ve been using Mastodon (@[email protected]) as well. I’d be happy to hear from people.