The debut of János Dénes Orbán divided critics, who described him as a “charmingly brazen-spoken, self-confident fellow” who balances between the fairy-like and the vulgar (Éva Cs, Gyimesi) [1], as well as a “consciously uninhibited, post-Freudian sex monkey” (István Berszán) [2].

The author arrived in Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár) in 1991 as a student majoring in Hungarian and English, soon becoming a member of the Bretter György Literary Circle. Through lively debates and discussions in local pubs, a shared literary concept emerged among participants, which the authors termed ‘trans-middle’, and which OJD [Orbán, János Dénes] became the most prominent representative of.

His poetry collection Hümériáda was published in 1995, whose significance is perhaps comparable only to Endre Ady’s Új versek (lit. New Poems) (I emphasised this in the book’s blurb, and I maintain this opinion to this day): in opposition to the then-fashionable postmodernism, in which the text writes itself, and against the increasingly blurred concept of the author (‘the author is dead’), it presents – roughly simultaneously with János Térey – a literature dominated by the ‘strong author’, creating a mythology in which disillusionment arising from impersonality cannot even emerge. The collection’s main driving force is the poems of Jenő Rejtő’s legionnaire, Hümér Troppauer; the Rejtőesque vagabond’s great physical strength is fortunately matched by János Dénes Orbán’s powerful poetic expression.

The opening poem A szárnyas idő árbocomra szállt (lit. Winged Time Alighted on My Mast), exhibits all the features that highlight this poetry’s novelty: it paraphrases hymnically (in this case, Dániel Berzsenyi) and at the exact moment, pulls down to earth to liberate and elevate. It kneads together sayings about fleeting time and the iron grip of time with the lines of the early 19^th-century poet:

“A szárnyas idő árbocomra szállt,

fehér dalát vijjogja szüntelen,

s én térdrehullva nézem, hallgatom

– vitorlámat levonni nem merem.”

(lit. “Winged time alighted on my mast,

singing its white song ceaselessly,

and I, falling to my knees, watch and listen

– I dare not lower my sail.”)

The question naturally arises immediately whether Berzsenyi himself might not be using the well-known saying (“Oh, winged time suddenly flies away, / And all its works hover around its fleeting wing”). We would still only smile at what our classicist poet’s beautiful poem about passing might be traced back to; the absolute, liberated joy of reading begins when we realise what the mast means in OJD’s usage. The time-bird nests on the “withered chest” of the lyrical self-suffering from chronic erection, which is why he cannot dock “at the shore of tranquillity” (in plain terms, time passes, but the suffering caused by erection remains). (Nowadays this poem could also bear the subtitle “Sensitising Poem for Those Suffering from Priapism”, proving that it can paraphrase not only earlier but also later literary tradition.) Is it any wonder that after this, his self-confidence soars to the heavens, and elsewhere (Én egy virág vagyok [lit. I Am a Flower]) he declares,

“Én vagyok az első költő,

aki nem a penészes szájával,

hanem öklével védi verseit.”

(lit. “I am the first poet

who defends his poems not with his

mouldy mouth, but with his fist.”)

In the poem Erőversek 3. Ars (lit. Power Poems Ars No 3), he elaborates this further:

“Bár a poézis csak homok,

folytatni buzdított a vér,

amely azok torkából ömlött,

kik azt mondták,

versem mit sem ér.”

(lit. “Though poetry is but sand,

blood urged me to continue,

which flowed from the throats of those

who said

my poem is worth nothing.”)

(Not long afterwards, in 1997, János Térey’s famous yet critically overlooked Interpretátor [lit. Interpretator] appeared in the literary journal Előretolt Helyőrség [lit. Advanced Outpost], thus excluded it from his 2016 collected volume, which traces back precisely to Hümér Troppauer antecedents: “lírám élő, mint a tiszta gyapjú, / üde és arrogáns, nem éri gyönge gáncs / … Mohó vagyok, mint minden predátor: / rágatlanul eszlek meg, Interpretátor” (lit. “my lyric is alive, like pure wool, / fresh and arrogant, no weak reproach reaches it / ... I am greedy, like every predator: / I devour you unchewed, Interpretator”.) The above Ars becomes ars poetica “when the 20^th century sets out for morning wrist exercises”, whilst the lyrical self hides at the foot of a moss hillock, “and memory’s rod pulls the skin up and down”, so that the images merge into a single woman, “a dim, full-breasted Venus who embraces everything”. The gesture of withdrawal and the fulfilment offered by the Woman can be just as good (indeed better) than the rational, planned muscle development of centuries performing wrist exercises, it suggests. Gábor Szabó formulates all this as follows: “The Hümériáda poems (...) speak precisely in the voice of an authorial subjectivity that positionally transcends the dichotomy of nothing and something, light and shadow, who, however, arising from his position, precisely sees through and absorbs into himself each of the standpoints he ironically surpasses [3].”

What this poetry brought new is summarised by László Szilasi, still relevant today, in connection with a poem written after the 1996 collection A találkozás elkerülhetetlen (lit. The Encounter is Inevitable), included in the third volume (Hivatalnok-líra [lit. Clerk-lyric], 1999) (Ifjabb csikóbb poéta Jack Cole-hoz [lit. To Younger More Coltish Poet Jack Cole]): “I had barely learned that the author is dead, that language is empty, that it is incapable of reaching any signified, that signifier points to signifier, word to word in endless, unstoppable flow, and young Hungarian literature already gives (if not to others: to me) new, differently tailored reading matter and tasks in its desire for a language that is now again saturated and strong, yet controllable, and somehow, outwitting the law of meaning’s scattering and deferral, still leads us perhaps all the way to things [4].”

And “things” can be reached through such paths as the love of the “beautiful whale-woman”: “S miközben ezt a kettős testet lihegve mászom, / fölsejlik régi énem a vers mögötti vásznon” (lit. “And whilst I panting climb this double body, / my old self appears on the canvas behind the poem”) (Azt a szép bálna-asszonyt, azt a kétarcú várost [lit. That Beautiful Whale-woman, that Two-faced City]). The ‘old self’ is not some absolute, immanent, divine something, but rather that tradition of the body which unfolds before us through, for example, Rabelais’s (and OJD’s) works: “bútor, mely szerelmünket elbírta volna, / nem létezett. (….) A kályhát egyedül hozta be, / könnyedén, fél vállára vetve, / de nem volt rá soha szükségünk / (negyvenkét fokos lázban égtünk)” (lit. “furniture that could have borne our love / did not exist. (...) She brought in the stove alone, / easily, throwing it over one shoulder, / but we never needed it / (we burned in forty-two-degree fever)”) (Bahamut lánya [lit. Bahamut’s Daughter]). He rescues earlier literature into this old-new world (here: Attila József) by paraphrasing (not ‘quoting’, not ‘developing further’) it, thereby importing from modernity’s ocean of texts everything that helps us feel good in this deeper (this is not necessarily a value judgement: it simply indicates that it is lower) and decidedly more enjoyable tradition.

The texts’ reflexivity becomes stronger; paraphrase is always an occasion “for a new travesty” (Anna egy pesti bárban [lit. Anna in a Pest Bar]). In the poem All My Tomorrows, he also systematically lists those authors from tradition whom he considers worthy of speaking whilst dressed in their clothes. The boundary between self and them simply disappears; the stories of those listed are also his stories:

“Szeretném tudni, kié is jövőm

azok közül, kik én vagyok. Aki

megjárta Dante poklát, tükreit

Poe-nak, Swedenborg és Silesius

világát és a borgesi Idő

s az Álom minden egyes rétegét (…)

Vagy Villon, Baudelaire, Rimbaud visz tovább,

a vérben izzó őrült szenvedély (…)”

(lit. “I would like to know whose future is mine

among those who are me. He who

journeyed through Dante’s hell, Poe’s

mirrors, Swedenborg’s and Silesius’s

world and every single layer of Borgesian

Time and Dream (...)

Or Villon, Baudelaire, Rimbaud carry me forward,

the mad passion glowing in blood (...)”)

The erotically charged ‘poem’, literature’s undressing is the only chance to approach the ‘essence’, understand: the veil itself, the ‘pre-nuptial dream’:

“Míg ez a vers levetkezett,

úgy remegtem, hittem halálom. (…)

És csak lestem a lényeget,

mint ereszkedik pókfonálon,

fátylat sző – nász előtti álom –,

lebeg az ékezet felett.”

(lit. “Whilst this poem undressed,

I trembled so, believed my death. (...)

(lit. “And I only watched the essence,

how it descends on spider-thread,

weaving veil – pre-nuptial dream –,

hovering above the accent.”)

(Lebeg az ékezet felett [lit. Hovering Above the Accent])

Alongside early strength and sentimentalism in a good sense (think only of Hümér Troppauer’s softenings, the poet who defends his poems with his fist), a philosophical (or seemingly more philosophical) voice emerges, which, however, does not attempt to answer ‘ontological questions’ (since the body continues to dominate), merely conveys them more subtly than before. The author remains consistent: in the Hümériáda, he sprinkles the sand of verse on the question marks that catch like hooks in his rectum, and he does the same in later poems. In other words, OJD’s poetry is healing powder for abrasions. And indeed: can, should, must poetry strive for more than this?

István Margócsy highlights this poetry’s deconstructive features as well as its critique of Transylvanian identity: “If there is today such significant poetry in Hungary that operates and acts under the sign of deconstruction as an all-encompassing and defining literary gesture, then it is surely Orbán’s. Its raw individuality constantly suspicious of generalisations, its radical subversiveness permeating language and tradition in every fibre, its strong emotionality not lacking in destructiveness, as well as its tempestuously cheerful humour all derive from the dismantling of that system of expectations which would prescribe (or would have prescribed) with mandatory exclusivity the pathos-laden modality emphasising and fixing suffering through its articulation”. At the same time, he also notices that in this poetry the lyrical subject’s existence is questionable, yet despite this it possesses the most definite features possible: “Passionate, wild, raw, cynical, sentimental, playful, provocative, heroic, wicked – all this and much more extreme, and naturally contradictory qualification can be said of this poetry's lyrical subject, provided it even has a lyrical subject at all. Orbán intentionally and challengingly plays with turning inside out the traditionally accepted lyrical poetic stance or poetic voice-leading, showing simultaneously from several sides that which so many (great) poets liked to claim or show had only one side [5].”

Following this is a collection of novellas, Vajda Albert csütörtököt mond (lit. Albert Vajda Fails, 2000). According to Csaba Károlyi, one of its most striking features is refined style: “The collection containing prose works in certain respects preserves the hitherto strident manner of speaking that does not avoid violating taboos, which is, however, counterbalanced by sensitive and intelligent diction. Orbán’s forceful and precise language use is coupled with extraordinarily fine stylistic sense, which not only makes the volume’s linguistic world varied but also produces tempestuously amusing texts in places”. According to the critic, it “would attempt a witty and provocative continuation of the Jorge Luis Borges-type literary universe. Besides the adventure of the spirit, the reader can surely count on stylistic bravura, dynamic, uninhibited reading and cheerful moments [6]”.

One of the volume’s most outstanding pieces is the title-giving Vajda Albert csütörtököt mond (lit. Albert Vajda Fails), which reveals that the author has at least as much sense of tragedy (or at least of representing life’s darker aspects) as of humour. The way he recounts his childhood spent in the company of his bedridden father and Radio Free Europe is unequivocally masterful. The confessional text of the very present, real author completely lacks self-reflection and interpretative gestures; therefore, the reader can concentrate on the mood created by the manner of speaking. He perceives the text is suffused with love, which eliminates all questions, ‘what if’-type speculations, travesties, and parallel worlds. This emphatically non-aesthetic category, the text operated by love (which is incidentally the secret ingredient of his entire poetry and fiction), also rather resists interpretative attempts, but addresses a much larger audience. If you have no love for your topic or generally for life, if you lack enthusiasm, you are uninteresting – this is what János Dénes Orbán recognised, and this is the principle he applies in his works. (Lajos Szakolczay formulates this thus regarding the Hümériáda: “Many years must pass before it becomes clear that this licentiousness probably conceals a feeling heart. Who, despite his shadow-existence, invented – in his mysterious withdrawals and advances, created – his own shadow because he was afraid throughout. Afraid of the role assigned (imposed) to him, afraid of loneliness, afraid of the minority fate, afraid of towers – even if only of Lajos Olosz’s height. Since he is not – never was – prepared for the horrors lurking for man, to narrow the circle: the most personal tragedy – becoming horrifying with mother’s death, he plays and plays [7].”)

In the volume’s 2018 expanded edition, the title-giving new novella is followed by the memoir-like text Vajda Albert ismét csütörtököt mond (lit. Albert Vajda Fails Again), which appears at the book’s end. In this, the lives of Albert Vajda and the author run parallel, until after discussions about literature’s loss of importance, he states the key sentence: “I moved into a smartphone.” Then he continues: “This is not my homeland, I just live in it. I often hate it, as one tends to hate forced accommodation, but I have no choice if I want to preserve my homelands. A palm-sized window, from here I view the world, from here I step out into the world, through glass. In the window, my mother appears every two days.” According to Györgyi Pécsi, “with this, OJD significantly retuned his book. The previous editions ended with the writing Nagycsütörtök (lit. Maundy Thursday), alluding emphatically to Jenő Dsida, with hopeless hope, waiting for the unpredictable, uncertain future; the current one (alongside the ‘mandatory’ existential anxiety) with the joy of finding and being found by homeland. According to the framework’s referential readability, the East-Central European dictatorship became a finished past, and the path of liberation from it also became past, nothing other than a literary freedom fight, complete immersion in literature, in poetry. Fooling around, tongue-sticking, parody, virtuoso witty and malicious play, because ‘laughter also meant survival’ (à la Albert Vajda) – using and exploiting the Borgesian poetics that offered the greatest creative freedom possibility at that time [8].”

His novella A zákhányos csuda (lit. The Hiccupping Miracle, 2000) was also published in the collection Albert Vajda fails, and it is the first among his Székely writings (both in theme, way of thinking, and language). We arrive in the world of Áron Tamási’s tale Kivirágzott kecskeszarvak (lit. Goat Horns in Bloom), which shows remarkable similarity to Áron Tamási in shaping the Székely mentality, where anything can happen. OJD combines the Székely tradition (linguistic humour, the worldview that turns the world upside down) with the Borgesian universe, resulting in one of Hungarian literature’s best novellas, which masterfully blends the sublime, magnificent, and aristocratic literary register with that of popular literature. Jeromos Ladik had already circulated, i.e. written several works in his lifetime, but had not yet had time to complete the great epic. The Romanians are just about to impale him when the Lord’s heart takes pity and allows him to put the finishing touch to his life’s work (“And there was the lord in the root, Jeromos didn’t see him, but heard a voice saying: Well then, my friend, you can finish it! For this is how the Lord God speaks to the Székely, like to a godfather”). They’re already pulling down his trousers from his bottom and would stick the stake into him when time stops and he can finish his great work (which then disappears without trace, only its reputation remains, and finally András Ferenc Kovács can rewrite it, “because he does nothing else, eternally only imagines himself as someone else, and now one more thing, what does it matter to him?”).

István Fried unfolds this world’s driving forces: “Just as Jaromír Hladík in A titkos csuda (lit. The Secret Miracle) (Jeromos Ladik: wordplay on names!) can finish his work, so can the Székely condemned to death. Borges’s story, elevated to the unexpected and figurative, seems to be extinguished by dialect and ‘natural’ presentation, inclining towards intended vulgarity, and thereby ‘desacralises’ the canonical Borgesian modality. Yet it essentially repeats it, as the travesty repeats its pretext, transposing the sublime, the elevated, the mysterious into the popular. It presents it in a different tone without, however, changing its deeper essence. (...) linguistic humour simultaneously expands the original tale’s possibilities, because referring back and drawing other works’ registers into the reference system makes it multi-layered, multi-meaningful; linguistic parody and emphasised locality justify Borges’s axiom proclaimed about writing-entering into the single book [9].”

Later, OJD collects his humorous writings created in Székely spirit into a volume (Véres képeslap Erdélyből [lit. Bloody Postcard from Transylvania], 2018). This volume’s title piece, Véres képeslap Erdélyből, avagy a gölöncséri veszedelem [lit. Bloody Postcard from Transylvania, or the Gölöncsér Peril], indulges in Rabelaisian excesses, mocking Transylvanian and Székely stereotypes to frighten tourists away from Székely Land. In the way János Dénes Orbán describes the grim Székely landscape, there is a distillation of Mór Jókai’s landscape descriptions, at least on a level as high as the depiction of the Iron Gates or Nobody’s Island in Az aranyember (The Man with the Golden Touch). Thus does OJD introduce us to the fearsome and exotic Székely world:

“What a, what a place! It is full of grim, wretched, enormous mountains, which are so steep that sheep must be lowered on ropes to graze on the mountainside. Dense, ugly pine forests loom into the great stinking nothingness. (...) It was always an accursed province. Here fled the last homo neanderthals, but the homo sapiens tracked them down and ate them so that no trace remained.” When we already feel this could not be expressed more vividly, comes the encore: “But what manner of people inhabit Gölöncsér? Who are those who chose such a grim environment as their homeland? They are the notorious Csík Székelys. Their stature is lanky and muscular, their chest hairy, their eyes bloodshot, a sharp penknife in their pocket, and an axe at their belt. And let’s not even talk about the men...”

Humour arises from grim sublimity in such a way that the reader or listener falls off their chair laughing. The author’s brain keeps starting up, for example, if it concerns childbirth, he counts on at least eight:

“There’s no day when someone isn’t stabbed in the inn. If, at a ball or wedding, there is no knifing, the celebration must be repeated. The Gölöncsér woman bears eight or nine children; it’s calculated thus: one for the stream, one for the marsh, one for the wilderness, one for the hellish bog-field. One is killed by the other children during play, one falls onto a knife in adolescence, and one is murdered in the inn or at the ball. But that one or two that remain is so hard that you can’t hammer a nail into it, it will fight even the devil, no one can defeat it.”

I didn’t mention Rabelais here by chance: if OJD’s humour can be linked to anyone’s, it’s to the author of Gargantua. OJD devours the world, imagining it just as grandly as the medieval French author’s giant protagonist eats ham, beef tongue, blood, and liver sausage (while always swallowing a spoonful of mustard before the next course). For what is life worth if we don’t sometimes overflow and take over, devouring the entire world? Perhaps this is the essence of OJD’s Székely comic prose: the author has a loving relationship with language; he teases it like a Székely boy teases a girl (or vice versa). This is beautiful, foolish, devilish literature that the reader inevitably falls in love with.

The same humour can be detected in the devil-novel Búbocska (lit. Little Topknot), 2006) – which, according to unanimous critical assessment, is a book not for children but for adults –, in the humorous sketch collection Alkalmi mesék idegbeteg fölnőtteknek (lit. Occasional Tales for Neurotic Adults), 2012), as well as in the Székely joke rewritings Miért ne menjünk Erdélybe? Székely viccek és egyéb nyeletlenségek (lit. Why Shouldn’t We Go to Transylvania? Székely Jokes and Other Crudities), 2021). In this last work, OJD’s Székelys swear by the absurd or nonsensical lightness of existence; this trait sets them apart from all other people (at least in this orchestration).

In 2015, the Csokonai National Theatre Debrecen staged the author’s drama Magyar Faust (lit. Hungarian Faust), which had been in preparation since the early 2000s; this was finally published as a book a year later. The devils from Little Topknot also appear here, seeking to acquire the men’s souls. Professor Hatvani manages to make a pact with Mephistopheles while remaining relatively free. The work’s fundamental question: what does man do with knowledge, and is he capable of remaining human against the devil and his own temptations?

The poetry collection A költő, a ringyó és a király. Janus Pannonius apokrif költeményei (lit. The Poet, the Whore and the King. Apocryphal Poems of Janus Pannonius), 2015) represents a return (after a longer break) to lyric poetry. After translating the novel Karoton of his master György Faludy, known as ‘the Hungarian Villon’, into Hungarian in 2006 at the request of another master, Géza Szőcs, he turns to Janus Pannonius’s hitherto silenced, considered obscene poems, rewriting or composing them with the undisguised aim of strengthening the poetic tradition of the body in Hungarian literature. This Janus/OJD has a recurring trick: he constantly speaks of domestic backwardness while illustrating it through bodily themes, bringing ostensibly vulgar voices into literature. Thus, he speaks of the situation in Hungary:

“A viszonyokat híven tükrözöm,

ha megsúgom: Quintilianusból legfeljebb

a két utolsó szótagot ösmerik,

s a száj is épp e dolgot végzi el:

az egyszerit”

(lit. “I faithfully reflect conditions

if I whisper: of Quintilianus, they know at most

the last two syllables,

and the mouth performs this act precisely:

the simple one”

(Guarino salutem [lit. Greeting Guarino])

The blending of intellectual and physical levels can be observed; Janus/OJD discusses the unity of verse and senses, expressing pig thoughts with coarse words:

“Almát és verset küldtél, Porcellius,

és nem tudom: almád kíséri versed

vagy versed almád? Ez korántsem mindegy,

az evés élvezetét a szellemével kísérni,

vagy az olvasás gyönyörét a gyümölcs

zamatával fűszerezni. Ám mielőtt

e bölcseleti felütéstől elalélnál,

mint férfi férfival, beszéljünk: mit akarsz?

Almával és verssel megkörnyékezni a seggem?”

(lit. “You sent apple and verse, Porcellius,

and I don’t know: does your apple accompany your verse

or your verse your apple? This is far from irrelevant,

to accompany the eating’s pleasure with intellect,

or to spice the reading’s delight with fruit’s

flavour. But before you’d swoon

from this philosophical overture,

let’s speak as man to man: what do you want?

To court my arse with apple and verse?”)

(Porcellio poetae [lit. To Porcellius the Poet])

The volume Swedenborg kávéház (lit. Swedenborg Coffeehouse, 2015) is partly a roman à clef; members of the Cluj artistic milieu can be recognised among the characters (for example, when Ferenc Bréda died, the author remembered him with the section about Doctor Hugo [10]). The work’s central location is the Swedenborg coffeehouse, which is “the symbolic venue of the tree of knowledge. Here come the philosophers hungry for life experience, the debauched artists, the misunderstood prophets and the down-and-out armchair philosophers. From here Jauss departs and returns here, and experiences not only heaven and hell but also earthly world’s possibilities, partakes in the most vulgar and most sublime pleasures, yet almost every possibility proves to be a false path” (Zita Izsó). The work is also “a psychological novel, picaresque and surreal adult fairy tale, but contains philosophical elements as well as half a volume of poetry. Moreover, the book’s great virtue is that the reader doesn’t get bored for a moment: they become part of tempestuous adventures filled with fabulous hedonism and charming mischief” (Zita Izsó) [11]. (Let us note as a curiosity that OJD later realises the very real Bulgakov coffeehouse based on the imagined Swedenborg coffeehouse, the den of Cluj’s artistic and bohemian society.)

In 2016, after launching the Előretolt Helyőrség Writers’ Academy, he published his essay/manifesto, Előretolt szó (lit. Advanced Word), in the first anthology of academy writers, the volume Enumeráció (lit. Enumeration). In this, he raises his voice against literary censorship, circling the wagons, over-politicisation, insularity, and distancing from the audience. “Today, if you write a love poem spiced with a little playfulness, you can be accused of treating your Dulcinea as a sexual object. There are fewer and fewer things you’re allowed to joke about, because they really don’t recognise jest in humour now, you can't know whose fucking sensitivity you’re hurting and who will issue a fatwa against you, then kick you out of literature. Indeed, there is censorship again in Hungary, and this censorship, this time, is not forced on writers by some power, but the literary profession voluntarily put it on itself.” Perhaps here he formulates his ars poetica most pointedly: he seeks life-scented literature, for this purpose speaking out against literature made with humanities software: “I seek life’s scent in verse, passion, pulsation, excitement, fantasy; intelligence, not intellectualising. Something that gives me more than understanding the poem: shiver, heat, chill, joy, melancholy, erection, but I’d even settle for nausea, just let it differ from the usual assembly-line work. I don’t seek the perfect, but something unusual, because I often have the feeling regarding contemporary Hungarian lyric poetry – not just the young – that someone already completed the Hungarian verse-writing software by the early 2000s, a single program – since only updated with some political correctness – pushes the whole thing, and they distribute it among Hungarian literary forums [12].”

Based on his texts so far, we can say that the author has written himself into Hungarian literary history with his life-infused, emotion-rich literature, thereby demonstrating the legitimacy of the bodily tradition.

[1] Éva Cs. Gyimesi’s blurb in the Hümériáda volume

[2] István Berszán: Hümért leb...ák avagy a „Sire”-t kutyaharapással (lit. Hümér is F...cked or “Heir” of the Dog). Látó, 1996/1. (VII. évf.), 75-82, 75, https://orbanjanosdenes.adatbank.ro/belso.php?k=12&p=301#_Toc139367681

[3] Gábor Szabó: Egy fiktív személy (f)eltüntetése (lit. The (Dis)appearance of a Fictive Person). Irodalomtörténeti Közlemények, 1997/ 5–6 (101. évf.), 656-663, 659, https://epa.oszk.hu/00000/00001/00392/pdf/itk_EPA00001_1997_05-06_656-663.pdf

[4] László Szilasi: A lyuk és a makaróni (lit. The Hole and the Macaroni). Magyar Narancs, 1996/34, https://orbanjanosdenes.adatbank.ro/belso.php?k=12&p=301#_Toc139367697

[5] István Margócsy: Orbán János Dénes: Párbaj a Grand Hotelben (lit. János Dénes Orbán: Duel at the Grand Hotel). 2000, 2001. március (13. évf.), 62-68, 63, https://orbanjanosdenes.adatbank.ro/belso.php?k=12&p=304#_Toc139368603

[6] Csaba Károlyi: Ex libris. Orbán János Dénes: Vajda Albert csütörtököt mond. (lit. Ex Libris. János Dénes Orbán: Albert Vajda Fails). Élet és Irodalom, 2000/23 (XLIV. évf.), 13, https://orbanjanosdenes.adatbank.ro/belso.php?k=12&p=302#_Toc139368413

[7] Lajos Szakolczay: Orbán János Dénes: Hümériáda. (lit. János Dénes Orbán: Hümériáda). Kortárs, 1996/9. (40. évf.), 102-103, https://adt.arcanum.com/hu/view/Kortars_1996_2/?pg=367&layout=s

[8] Györgyi Pécsi: Írások, amelyeket szívesen olvastunk (lit. Writings We Gladly Read). Irodalmi Jelen, 209. (XIX. évf., 2019. március), 86-92, 88. https://epa.oszk.hu/03200/03297/00205/pdf/EPA03297_irodalmi_jelen_2019_03.pdf

[9] István Fried: O. J. D., X. Y. B., J. L. B. és a többiek (lit. O. J. D., X. Y. B., J. L. B., and the Others). Tiszatáj, 2000/11 (54. évf.), 88-104, 92, https://orbanjanosdenes.adatbank.ro/belso.php?k=12&p=302#_Toc139368421

[10] János Dénes Orbán: A Swedenborg kávéház (részlet) [lit. The Swedenborg Coffeehouse (Excerpt)]. Erdélyi Előretolt Helyőrség, 2018. október (I. évf. 4.), 7.

[11] Zita Izsó: Ágnes és a túlvilág. Érzéki kiruccanások Orbán János Dénes új könyvében (lit. Agnes and the Afterworld. Sensual Excursions in János Dénes Orbán’s New Book). Lugas. A Magyar Idők hétvégi melléklete, 2015. december 12, 14.

[12] János Dénes Orbán: Előretolt szó (lit. Advanced Word). In: Enumeráció. Válogatás az Előretolt Helyőrség Íróakadémia tagjainak alkotásaiból (lit. Enumeration. Selection from the Works of Advanced Outpost Writers’ Academy members) (ed. Koppány Zsolt Nagy). Előretolt Helyőrség Íróakadémia, Budapest, 2016, https://irodalmijelen.hu/2017-jan-18-1832/eloretolt-szo

[i] The author of this overview of the oeuvre faces a challenging position. On one hand, because the author in question, János Dénes Orbán (OJD), himself declares that I am his literary discoverer; on the other hand, because one cannot honestly expect objectivity from someone who, for more than three decades, has viewed literature based on an ideal similar (even identical) to OJD’s. All of this may also represent an advantage: considering that no viewpoint (speaking position) exists that could provide an objective, external perspective, thorough knowledge of the author and his work can certainly compensate for the disadvantages of perhaps excessive subjectivity.

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