Michael Blumenthal graduated from the Cornell Law School with a J.D. degree in 1974, after studying philosophy and economics at the State U. of New York at Binghamton. His seventh book of poems. And, will be published by BOA Editions in early 2009. A graduate of Cornell Law School and formerly Director of Creative Writing at Harvard, he is the author of the memoir All My Mothers and Fathers (Harper Collins, 2002), and of Dusty Angel (BOA Editions, 1999). His novel Weinstock Among The Dying, which won Hadassah Magazine's Harold U.
Ribelow Prize for the best work of Jewish fiction, has just been re-issued in paperback, and his collection of essays from Central Europe, When History Enters the House, was published in 1998.
A frequent translator from the German, French and Hungarian, he practices psychotherapy with Anglophone expatriates in Budapest and spends summers at his house in a small village near the shores of Lake Balaton in Hungary.
1. When did you arrive in Hungary and what brought you here?
1992. I came as a Fulbright professor at ELTE.
2. Have you ever been an expatriate elsewhere?
Yes, France, Germany, Israel
3. What surprised you most about Hungary?
How absolutely beautiful, and sweet, the women are.
4. Friends are in Budapest for a weekend - what must they absolutely see and do?
Walk across Chain Bridge at night or early morning; have palacsinta up in Normafa
5. What is your favourite Hungarian food?
Túrós palacsinta
6.What is your favourite Hungarian word?
Szerelem.
7. What do you miss most from home?
60 Minutes. Women who get my jokes in English.
8. What career other than yours would you love to pursue?
Primate zoology
9. What's a job you would definitely never want?
Vacuum cleaner salesman
10. Where did you spend your last vacation?
In South Africa working with baboons.
11. Where do you hope to spend your next holiday?
At my house near Lake Balaton.
12. What was your favourite band, film, or hobby as a teen?
The Rolling Stones.... and Beethoven.
13. What can't you resist?
A beautiful woman who is also kind and intelligent.
14. Red wine or white?
White
15. Book or movie?
Better a good movie than a lousy book, but both.
16. Morning person or night person?
Definitely morning.
17. Dog person or cat person?
Cat
18. Buda or Pest side?
Pest... except for walks in nature.
19. What would you say is your personal motto?
(1) Always look someone in the eye when you're lying to them.. AND when you're telling the truth, and (2) Pleasure is the only true justice.