Mátyás Dunajcsik is a queer, multilingual writer, translator and performer who writes prose, poetry and plays in Hungarian, English, and German. He grew up in Budapest, where he completed his studies in aesthetics (art theory) and French language and literature at Eötvös Loránd University before working as an editor-in-chief and literary agent. For his debut «Repülési kézikönyv» (Tr.: Flight Manual, 2007) he received the Sándor Bródy Prize; this was followed by the short story collection «Balbec Beach» (2012) and, after a fellowship at the Young Academy of the Berlin Academy of Arts (2009), the book «Der Boden unter Berlin» (2010, tr. The Floor Under Berlin), created together with artist Plinio Ávila. From 2014 to 2016 he lived in Reykjavík on a fellowship studying Icelandic language and literature and has since accompanied his readings with the Icelandic zither Langspil.
In 2017 Dunajcsik moved to Germany, where his short story collection «Unterwasserstädte» (tr. Underwater Cities) was published in German the same year; he initially lived between Dresden and Berlin. In 2019, he co-wrote the play «Elbfuge» with director Árpád Schilling for the Staatsschauspiel Dresden. His novel «Víziváros» was published in Hungary in 2021, the same year he received the INITIAL working grant from the Academy of Arts; a grant from the Cultural Foundation of Saxony followed in 2022, prompting him to focus intensively on writing in German. In 2023, he settled permanently in Berlin and published his first German-language poetry collection, «Verlorene Gedichte» (tr. Lost Poems). The essay «PUNK» followed in 2024; that same year he received a grant from the German Literature Fund, and in 2026 one from the Berlin Senate. As a translator from English, French and Icelandic, he has rendered works by Albert Camus, Oscar Wilde, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Vladimir Nabokov, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and F. Scott Fitzgerald into Hungarian. In readings, he now often accompanies himself on fretless bass or other instruments. Mátyás Dunajcsik lives in Berlin.
Last Update: 2026