Hemingway
By Zita Muranyi
I live in Ráckeve, some fifty kilometers from the traffic-choked capital, in a small town of ten thousand along the Danube. Most people moved here to enjoy the supposed blessings of rural life: fresh air, keeping animals, the slower pace far from the city’s noise.
Lately, though, we’ve been appearing on the evening news one story after another, and our little town is gaining a certain notoriety. Not long ago a TV crew parked right outside our gate. They wanted me to talk about the postman who had been run over; my face and voice were blurred on screen. I told them I hadn’t seen anything, only heard a faint crash. Then the body lay still by the liquor store.
The next time the cameras came was after a storm: winds of 140 km/h had torn down the chestnut grove everyone treated as a landmark by the bus stop. Most recently, it was because the X-ray machine at the local clinic broke down. I can’t begin to imagine what will make the news next. If my cat were to give birth to six-toed kittens, that would be a real curiosity for me.
But then I can’t help remembering that Hemingway shot himself in the head.
Zita Murányi is an award-winning Hungarian writer and poet, born in Budapest in 1982. She has published four poetry collections and five novels, receiving honors such as the Bródy Sándor Award, the Móricz Zsigmond Grant, and the MMA Scholarship. Her first English novel, On Mr. Darcy’s Sofa, appeared in 2023 (Inovie). Her poetry has been featured in They’ll Be Good for Seed (Wine Pine Press), the upcoming Peace in Gaza Anthology (August 2025), and ONE ART Anthology: The Book of Jobs (Fall 2025). Additional work has appeared in La Stanza Poetry Journal, Cholla Needles, Steam Ticket Journal, and Blink-Ink.