Storytelling and the Recovery of the Past

Notes on an American Hungarian Genealogy

Authors

  • G.W. Currier Fulbright Program

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/ahea.2026.629

Keywords:

Storytelling decline, narrative crisis, Magda Szabó, Hungarian diaspora, American Hungarian identity, intergenerational memory, family geneology

Abstract

This essay explores the declining role of storytelling in contemporary life by blending a personal and literary lens. After reflecting on storytelling’s evolution into novelistic art, the author draws on Magda Szabó's homemade cartomancy as a metaphor for shaping randomness into meaningful narrative and moves to consider philosopher Byung-Chul Han's warning that storytelling is falling mute, eroding social cohesion across generations. The author applies this framework to his own Hungarian American heritage, piecing together fragments of his great-grandfather’s life via a faded newspaper clipping relating the story of a thwarted robbery, and a visit to the author’s decaying ancestral village. Ultimately, the essay argues that storytelling revives both the living and the dead, weaving personal lives into a "living knot" with ancestors, countering erasure in diaspora and modernity.

Author Biography

G.W. Currier, Fulbright Program

G.W. Currier’s work in fiction is inspired by the stories of his Hungarian American family. His fiction has appeared in numerous journals. After receiving the Tulipán Foundation's 2025 Arts and Culture Award, he taught at the University of Debrecen through a Fulbright scholarship. He now works at the University of Tennessee.

References

Benjamin, Walter. The Storyteller Essays. NYRB, 2019.

Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction. University of Chicago Press, 1983.

Han, Byung-Chul. The crisis of narration. Translated by Daniel Steuer, Polity, 2024.

Kundera, Milan. “The Day Panurge No Longer Makes People Laugh.” Testaments Betrayed: An Essay in Nine Parts. Translated by Linda Asher, HarperCollins, 1995, 3-33.

McGilchrist, Iain. The Matter of Things. Perspectiva Press, 2021.

Robinson, Marilynne. “Facing Reality.” The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought. Picador, 2005, 76-86.

Szabó, Magda. Iza’s Ballad. Translated by George Szirtes, NYRB, 2016.

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Published

2026-08-21

Issue

Vol. 19 (2026)

Section

Scholarly Notes

License

Copyright (c) 2026 G.W. Currier

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