Crossing Borders

In 2023 Walter Benjamin’s latest selection of writings, titled Hasis in Marseille was published. The book has seen the daylight thanks to the publisher Kijárat and Anna Zsellér, who has worked both as a translator and editor of the book. This volume is another testimony to the diversity of Walter Benjmain’s writings, which makes us wonder whether there is something other than the figure of the author, that links the various essays to each other. And even if at first glance this connection is not so obvious, I think it can be revealed if we pay close attention to the individual texts. Similarly, to Benjamin’s creative work method, to justify my position, I must make digressions to get to the more cardinal questions of the review. In my writing, I will try to discuss questions such as why we should read Benjamin in Hungarian, and what we can call the task of a translator. And although I cannot provide a definitive answer to these dilemmas, asking the questions can provide us a fertile ground.  In this review, therefore, I would like to justify my proposition that the book should be viewed as a large montage of fragments, as an archive of viewpoints, which thus makes each text completely self-contained along the lines of interpenetrability and interconnectedness.