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| Eva Fejos, Author BANGKOK TRANSIT and 12 other best-sellers |
Hungarian
best-selling author, Eva Fejos, inspired readers with her first book BANGKOK TRANSIT “to take your life into your own hands.” It reached the best-seller’s list one month after
publication, and is available in English. A writer of “women’s fiction” Fejos features “brave women” as her
heroes. Since she published BANGKOK TRANSIT in Hungarian in 2008, she has written
12 other best-sellers.
In addition to
becoming a full-time author, Fejos served as an award-winning journalist. She
loves to travel—although she favors her hometown of Budapest—and has visited
all sites featured in her books. Of interest, she likes to buy flip-flops and
riding books.
Don't miss the excerpt following her interview.
Don't miss the excerpt following her interview.
Q: Who should
read BANGKOK TRANSIT? Do you consider it “women’s fiction?” If so, how does “women’s
fiction” differ from “romance?”
Eva Fejos: Ever since my
teens, I’ve wanted to write about something that also interests me as a reader.
This is how I arrived at so-called ‘women’s fiction’. My heroines are brave
women, who are as everyday people as us, but they can change their life. My
readers are mostly women (but it was really surprising for me when I discovered
that approximately 15-20 percent of my readers are men in Hungary). I often get
feedback from my readers, that after they read a book written by me, they could
make big decisions easier. They got power and strength from my characters and
from the story. BANGKOK TRANSIT isn’t
really a love story, despite the fact that it has storylines that connect to
love. And as in our lives, the relationships are important for my heroes, too.
My heroines are looking for themselves in the novel – and a love is a bonus for
them, as it is in our lives…
Q: You feature
multiple characters in BANGKOK TRANSIT. How do you convince readers to care
about them?
Eva Fejos: My mother told
me while reading BANGKOK TRANSIT that I built up too many characters. I really
can’t imagine novel-writing any other way. I’m entertained by the plot’s
parallel storylines and when the situation calls for it, I can ‘transplant
myself’ from the mind of one character to the next. The sharp transitions and
jumps manage themselves somehow, usually at the right places. Since I don’t
plan the scenario ahead of time, but rather, allow the story to whisk me along
as it runs its natural course, allowing my characters to shape their own lives,
I never know ahead of time where and how the storylines will intermingle. But
sooner or later they meet, and often I too am surprised by how they connect.
Q: How important is the setting of Bangkok
to telling your story? Could it take place in any city?
Eva Fejos: No, definitely
not. I have novels where locations are only interesting settings or backdrops,
but in BANGKOK TRANSIT the city is
almost a character itself. This story could not have taken place anywhere else.
Q: Do you write
to deliver a message as well as to entertain? If so, what message do you want
readers to receive?
Eva Fejos: When I write,
I don’t send messages to anyone. I’m the only one I want to please; I want to
appeal to my own taste. But I know that despite this, somehow I send an
important message by my novels to readers: make the important decisions in your
life! Somehow my readers could ‘read’ this message from my stories: they told
me that my novels help them in decision-making. For example, one of my readers decided to change her life
after she had read The Mexican. She
told herself: if The Mexican’s heroine, Zsofi, was able to make a life-changing
decision (that she didn’t regret), than she had to follow her own dreams, too!
My reader’s childhood dream was to work in London as a classy bar’s manager.
She moved there and started to follow her childhood dreams. Now she is the
manager of a bar in a luxury hotel, and she is very happy.
Q: What
inspires you to write and why? What first attracted you to women’s fiction?
Eva Fejos: I have always
been a bookworm. I wrote my first novel when I was a teenager, and since then I
have written so many novels. I didn’t know for a long time that I’m a ‘women’s
fiction writer’, I just wrote what I wanted to read as a reader. I write what I
feel like writing. This gives me pleasure and hopefully offers the same to my
readers.
Q: How relevant
is the concept of “villain” and “heroes” to BANGKOK TRANSIT? What makes a good
villain?
Eva Fejos: BANGKOK TRANSIT is about the everyday people who are looking for their own way in life,
seeking their happiness. There is one contradictory character in it (David),
but I wouldn’t say he is a villain – he makes mistakes, but he learns something
about life and love in the end of the story.
Q: You have written 12 other best-seller
novels. Are they in the same genre as BANGKOK TRANSIT? Can you tell us a little about them?
Are they available outside of Eastern Europe? Which one is your favorite?
Eva Fejos: Since I’m now
managing my own publishing house, I know that these novels can be categorized
under the genre called ‘women’s fiction.’ My favorite is always that book that
I’m working on. Now it’s ‘Because We Must
Love Each Other’, the novel that I’m going to publish in the summer. But I
like BANGKOK TRANSIT very much. And I like my latest, Vacation in Naples, which takes place in Naples, Italy. This will
be out in English sometime in the summer.
I
have novels that divide my readers, like my novella, Dalma. Either they love it or they hate it. Dalma is a strange,
outcast girl. Her father is Cuban and her mother is Hungarian. She was
ridiculed in school because of her Cuban descent (yes, unfortunately these
things happen in Hungary), and this introverted girl relates her story with stinging
humor. She tells about the years when her mother found a new husband; when her
half-brother was born; when the Gypsy boy she was in love with changed schools
and Dalma, who had a hard time coming to terms with this, skipped school for a
few weeks just to think and ponder life… The novella’s tone is very humorous,
but it deals with rather serious issues. It is written in first person
singular, and it was a topic I was so obsessed with that I finished it in a few
weeks. I think this story touched a nerve with many of my readers. This is one
of my favorite books.
Q: You write
for international readers. Do you write anything special to assure that
multiple nationalities will appreciate your stories?
Eva Fejos: I
write mostly as a cosmopolite and write cosmopolitan novels, and I believe that
I can help women not only in Hungary with my books, but also in many other
countries of the world. My books, I think, entertain and help my readers unwind
from their own lives for a few hours, and that is very important, and, as I
told you, my novels somehow make decision-making easier for my readers. The
heroes of my novels give the strength to my readers to make that choice, and
the feedback I receive is proof of that.
Q: What’s next? Will you continue to write
more novels?
Eva Fejos: Yes, of
course. My upcoming novel, I Waited One
Hundred Nights is with my editor right now, it will be out in Hungarian in
April. Now I’m writing my summer novel’s last chapters (Because We Must Love Each Other).
Q: Tell us about Eva Fejos. What do you
like to do when you’re not writing?
Eva Fejos: I like
traveling, to chat with my partner, to gaze at Lake Balaton, or to sit on our
terrace and admire the stunning views of my beautiful hometown, Budapest. I
like jogging, buying flip-flops and riding boots, and I like reading. And of
course, I enjoy strolling on the bank of the Danube with my dog, Rumli.
About
Eva Fejos
Eva
Fejos is a Hungarian writer and journalist. She worked
in one of the largest Hungarian women’s magazines, Nők Lapja (Women’s Journal),
as a journalist from 2001 until 2012. She was the recipient of both the Award
for Quality Journalism and the Award for Excellence. She
is tremendously fond of traveling. Her many experiences give a personal touch
to her exciting, propelling, and exotic novels. Fejos's first Hungarian best-seller
book, BANGKOK TRANSIT, reached the top of the best-seller list within one month
of its publication.
Following
the initial publication of this novel in 2008, she has gone on to write twelve
other best-sellers, making her a publishing phenomena in Hungary. According to
the many accounts given by her readers, the author's books are
"therapeutic journeys," full of flesh and blood characters who never
give up on their dreams. Many readers have been inspired to change the course
of their own lives after reading her books. "Take your life into your own
hands" is one of the important messages the author wishes to convey.
She:
- has
had 13 best-selling novels published in Hungary so far.
- BANGKOK TRANSIT is her first best-seller, published in 2008.
- has
won several awards as a journalist, and thanks to one of her articles, the
legislation pertaining to human egg donation was modified, allowing couples in
need to acquire donor eggs more easily.
-
likes novels that have several storylines running parallel.
-
visited all the places she’s written about.
-
founded her own publishing company (Erawan Publishing) in Hungary last year,
where she publishes her own books, and foreign books, that are hand-picked by
her, too.
- Her
books published in Hungary thus far are:
Till
Death Do Us Part (Holtodiglan)
Bangkok
Transit
Hotel
Bali
Chicks
(Csajok)
Strawberries
for Breakfast (Eper reggelire)
The
Mexican (A mexikói)
Cuba
Libre
Dalma
Hello,
London
Christmas
in New York (Karácsony New Yorkban)
Caribbean
Summer (Karibi nyár)
Bangkok,
I Love You (Szeretlek, Bangkok)
Starting
Now –
the new edition of Till Death Do Us Part (Most kezdődik)
Vacation
in Naples –
the English version will be published in summer, 2014 (Nápolyi vakáció)
To be
published in spring of 2014: I Waited One Hundred Nights (Száz éjjel vártam)
- Hungarian
To be published in summer of 2014: Because We
Must Love Each Others (Mert nekünk szeretnünk kell egymást) - Hungarian
About BANGKOK TRANSIT
Bangkok: a sizzling, all-embracing, exotic city where the past
and the present become intertwined. It’s a place where anything can happen… and
anything really does happen. The paths of seven people cross in this
metropolis. Seven seekers, for
whom this city might be a final destination. Or perhaps it is only the start of
a new journey? A successful businessman; a celebrated supermodel; a man who is
forever the outsider; a young mother who suddenly loses everything; a talented
surgeon, who could not give the woman he loved all that she desired; a brothel’s
madam; and a charming young woman adopted at birth. Why these seven? Why did
they come to Bangkok now, at the same time? Do chance encounters truly
exist?
BANGKOK TRANSIT is a Central European best-seller. The author,
Eva Fejos, a Hungarian writer and journalist, is a regular contributor to women’s
magazines and is often herself a featured personality. Bangkok Transit was her first best-seller, which sold more than
100,000 copies and is still selling. Following the initial publication of this
novel in 2008, she went on to write twelve other best-sellers, thus becoming a
publishing phenomena in Hungary According to accounts given by her readers, the
author’s books are “therapeutic journeys,” full of flesh and blood characters
who never give up on their dreams. Many readers have been inspired to change
the course of their own lives after reading her books. “Take your life into
your own hands,” is one of the important messages the author wishes to convey.
Try it for yourself, and let Eva Fejos whisk you off on one of her whirlwind journeys... that might lead deep
into your own heart.
Excerpt
“Are
you nuts?” asked her husband, when she last spoke to him on the phone a few
days earlier. “Why are you going back? Instead of starting a new life, you’re
living in the past?”
His
voice was angry, impassioned. Her husband – more like her ex-husband nowadays –
didn’t understand her anymore, even though they used to have such an amazing
relationship… before. But Anne knew that there was no longer anything binding
them together.
“I
have to go back so I can… end this and move on,” she said, and she hoped he
didn’t notice her voice choking up. She didn’t want him upset too. “You can’t
possibly understand this,” she added.
“No,
I can’t. You’re just torturing yourself. Anne, I beg you, please come back to
the present!”
“I
can’t. Not right now. I have to go there. For months I’ve felt that I can’t
take it anymore and that this is the only thing that can help me.”
“Do
you want… do you feel like spending New Year’s Eve with me?” he asked after a
long silence.
“No.
It’s really nice of you, but there’s nothing to celebrate.”
“I
didn’t want to celebrate. I just wanted to see you, to be together, and talk…
whatever you’d like,” he said softly. Then, after a long, blaring silence, he
added, “You know it’s not easy for me either. That I…”
“No!”
her voice was tense. “Please don’t continue. Please… I’m going. I’m not doing
New Year’s Eve. I’m packing up and flying away.”
“When
are you coming back?”
“I
don’t know yet.”
“Where
will you be staying?”
“The
same place. The Ambassador. Then… later… I don’t know. Somewhere around there. You know…”
“Anne,
instead of letting your wound to heal, you keep ripping open the scab. I
honestly don’t understand you.”
“Happy
New Year,” she said, and hung up.
She
felt nothing more than cold, painful emptiness. But she didn’t cry then. Only
when she pulled out her brand new, lightweight suitcase and started packing her
clothes did the tears begin to fall.
Yes,
she knew how the elevator worked. Yes, she knows which floor it’s on. Yes, she
also knows what time breakfast ends and that there is a buffet dinner in the
restaurant each evening. Yes, she’s familiar with the bar. She could hardly
wait to get away from the receptionist. So she could finally be alone. There
was a different story whirling in her head already.
Last
time (last time? no, that was a different person living a different life) they
had listened with interest to all the pampering options the hotel had to offer.
They had barely dropped their luggage before they headed down for a swim. The
sun was still shining, and there were only a few others by the pool. Her
husband dove in while they waved to him from the deck. Her husband splashed
them playfully, and they giggled loudly.
Now,
she stood there in the room, ready to face her memories. She put on her bathing
suit and headed down to the pool.
Links
Purchase
sites: Bangkok
Transit (English version):
Author’s
Sites
Twitter:
www.twitter.com/fejoseva
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