Foreword
László L. Simon (b. 1972), an Attila József Prize–winning poet, editor, publisher, literary organiser, essayist, cultural policymaker, and head of cultural institutions, is a versatile figure of the contemporary Hungarian literary and artistic middle generation, active across multiple genres and capable of continual renewal. He is at once an outstanding, consistently experimental avant-garde poet who has produced works unique even within Hungarian literary history and who persistently tests the limits of linguistic expression, and a sensitive essayist grounded in fundamentally conservative values; at the same time, he is a cultural-policy thinker who envisions ambitious projects while remaining firmly rooted in practical realities and committed to the preservation of cultural value. His oeuvre is so multifaceted that it resists straightforward categorisation. Nevertheless, the present concise sketch of his career undertakes precisely this task, and it is likely to be most effective when it characterises, succinctly and with focus, the most significant components of the oeuvre by genre and by volume.
The Poet
(visszavonhatatlanul…) (lit. Irrevocably…), 1996
László L. Simon’s first poetry collection, (visszavonhatatlanul…), appeared in 1996 and drew readers’ attention through the distinctive experimental poems associated with the Paris-based Magyar Műhely (lit. Hungarian Workshop). In this book, the poet articulates a kind of creative programme directed towards nothing less than understanding the world and himself. With considerable erudition, the volume mobilises a wide range of Hungarian and world-literary allusions, yet it speaks unmistakably in the poet’s own, individual voice. The linear poems, which venture boldly into experiments with punctuation and with visual-poetic elements, generate new interpretive possibilities with each rereading, offering an almost inexhaustible plurality of readings; at times they move from visual poetry towards the more opaque terrain of concrete poetry. Erzsébet Kelemen, the poet’s monographer, argues that the collection’s experimental poems occupy the threshold between transcendent and worldly existence, and that their purpose is to initiate dialogue, whether with God or with the ever-renewed reader. Simon, however, seeks to say as much as possible with a minimalist poetic toolkit. His poems are spare, at times tending towards hermeticism. One poem in the volume puts it with particular force: “when I was waiting for. / as. / I began to wait. / when. / as. / no.”
Egy paradigma lehetséges részlete (lit. A Possible Detail of a Paradigm), 1996
The poet’s second volume, Egy paradigma lehetséges részlete, likewise appeared in 1996 and may be regarded as a work of genuine literary-historical significance. It is, in fact, the first Hungarian lettrist creation. The book consists of visual poetic works of a calligraphic and combinatorial nature, offering a wealth of interpretive possibilities while decisively transcending traditional poetic language. Here graphemes, written and drawn characters, function as autonomous visual artworks endowed with their own meaning and vitality. Although a fragmentary lettrist tradition can be traced within Hungarian literature, László L. Simon was undoubtedly the first Hungarian author to devote an entire volume to this demanding experimental poetic tendency, which places the letter itself at the centre of artistic attention and invests it with semantic force. The work is closely related to the computer poetry of Tibor Papp, one of the major figures of the avant-garde. According to Péter H. Nagy, the book reinterprets the literary and artistic tradition of the avant-garde, assigning it renewed significance by revitalising it through a radicalised form of letter-art, thereby opening up new artistic possibilities inherent within it.
ISBN 963 7596 26 7, 1997
In 1997, László L. Simon published a limited-edition artist’s book with the Hungarian Magyar Műhely Publishing House, a work that transcends the medium of language to such an extent that it becomes difficult to make linguistically valid claims about it at all. According to Erzsébet Kelemen, this artist’s book represents nothing less than the abstraction of the word itself: a bold visual-poetic synthesis in which lettrism, concrete poetry, and conceptualism converge. Even the title of the work, the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) – a rigid, objective international identifier that ordinarily serves as a prerequisite for a book’s commercial circulation – is self-referential. The volume constructs itself using the most minimalist means imaginable: a sequence of numbers. Its interior likewise consists of fragments of the ISBN rendered as calligraphic figures that are often difficult to decipher or identify. As the American artist and art theorist Dick Higgins has observed, an artist’s book is always necessarily an end in itself, a self-constituting work; in this instance, through the radical elimination of the linguistic medium, it becomes, paradoxically, a self-enumerating artefact. It exists and does not exist at the same time; it can be read and cannot be read. Through these enigmatic qualities, the work stands as a distinctive and significant component of Simon’s oeuvre and of Hungarian experimental avant-garde literature more broadly.
met AMorf ózis, 2000
The poetry collection met AMorf ózis, published in 2000, constitutes an organic continuation of László L. Simon’s earlier experimental and avant-garde poetic work. In this singular volume, lettrist and concrete-poetic aspirations intersect, while the poet once again sets himself the goal of dismantling language or, at the very least, of transcending it. As the author of the afterword, the literary historian Péter H. Nagy, observes, in this work “it is not meaning behind or before words, but rather the materiality of written or spoken language itself that becomes the inscription of aesthetic experience”. The book is not only a work of visual poetry, but also a graphic one, more precisely a calligraphic artefact. Its object of creation and interpretation is the alphabet; yet within the individual calligraphic compositions the letters flow into one another, transform, and virtually simulate movement, thereby unfolding a broad spectrum of potential meanings and contents before the reader or viewer. According to Béla Bodor, within this self-enclosed, immanent artistic world “the signifier signifies itself; it has no outwardly directed signifying function”. As Bálint Szombathy, a contemporary of the poet, writes in his perceptive review of the volume, Simon “extracts from the letters he selects aesthetic formations, grapheme-like figures which, even under conditions of radical visual distortion, do not lose the basic morphological properties necessary for their identification; thus they exist somewhere at the threshold of recognisability, appearing in a zone between the pragmatic function of language and a disinterested aesthetic sphere”.
Secretum sigillum, 2003
In 2003, László L. Simon published his photographic art book Secretum sigillum, a work that may equally be read as an achievement in visual and experimental poetry. The volume comprises a distinctive series of photo-poems built from elementary geometric forms, altogether forty-nine “secret seals” arranged in a 7 × 7 structure. According to the author of the afterword, Bálint Szombathy, these images evoke archaic formations of material structure while simultaneously recalling the iconography of pop art. The digital photographs establish a peculiar, immanent artistic milieu of their own; through their irregularity and non-figurative patterning, they invite sustained contemplation on the part of the viewer. As one lingers over the images, gradually and reflectively, it becomes apparent that they are in fact derived from the imprints of shoe soles. For this reason, as the perceptive critic of the volume, József Kollár, has pointed out, the artist is fundamentally preoccupied here with the problem of creating and leaving behind an artistic trace. One of the artist’s perennial aims is not to vanish without residue, but to ensure that his name and oeuvre are remembered and evaluated by posterity. As András Bohár wrote of the book, “…the volume may be opened again and again. And the example of focused attention on essence and interpretation, the creation of critical contexts, and the transformation of things into our own creations may offer encouragement for those particular traces always to be unique – and for us to be conscious of this.”
Nem lokalizálható (lit. Unlocalisable, 2003)
The poetry collection Nem lokalizálható, published in 2003, contains avant-garde lyric works that are somewhat more traditional than those of the poet’s preceding volumes, insofar as the poems finally return to the medium of language. The book is structured into three sections and comprises fragmented poems that may be read in multiple grammatical and rhetorical ways, whose subject and object, as the title itself conceptually and programmatically suggests, are not, or only with difficulty, localisable. What unfolds here is a form of experimental lyrical self-dissection: the lyrical “I” observes itself, takes stock of itself, and although it speaks throughout in the first person singular, it gradually submerges into the swirling world of poetry and language, a realm increasingly beyond its control. In the process, the speaking subject itself becomes fragmentary, difficult to define, and ultimately unlocalisable. Zoltán Kékesi aptly characterises this enigmatic, compelling, and self- as well as world-reflective poetry in his perceptive review of the volume: “The imaginary evocation of the roles of the self appears at once as play and as compulsion, as the consequence both of the free abundance of imagination and of the vulnerability of personality; it simultaneously creates the impression of the boundless expansion of the self and of its painful mutilation.” Erzsébet Kelemen, the poet’s monographer, goes even further, discerning in this volume nothing less than a renewal of the venerable genre of the poema of humanity.
Japán hajtás (lit. Japanese Fold), 2008
In 2008, László L. Simon published the poetry collection Japán hajtás, in which he returns to a more traditional lyrical idiom: the volume uses conventional punctuation, its texts are far less fragmentary than the earlier experimental books, and most poems are longer in scope. It is also bibliographically distinctive: the leaves are folded back to the spine, so that while the visible surfaces carry verse texts, the folded inner pages, accessible only with difficulty, conceal photographs. The opening poem, at once prelude and programme, articulates an artistic poetics: “This is uncut reality, / a sequence of questions, / a folded / and leafable fragment of something / that was never ours, / like the fruity scent / of painted grapes.” The title points, on the one hand, to a Japanese-origin bookmaking technique and, on the other, to a kind of artistic initiation, a knowledge not readily available to others. After this programmatic threshold, the cycle Nagyanyám nagyapámmal beszélget (lit. My Grandmother Talks with My Grandfather) follows: in long, narratively inflected poems the poet summons memories of his grandparents and takes stock of his personal, familial, and national inheritance. The poems of remembrance are then succeeded by a cycle entitled Zsoltáros improvizációk (lit. Psalm Improvisations), which guides the reader into the domain of the sacred and of personally lived faith, offering seemingly improvisatory yet in fact rigorously composed poetic re-imaginings of selected biblical psalms, numbered with Roman numerals. The book concludes with a brief third cycle, only ten quatrains, Fides quaerens intellectum (lit. Faith Seeking Understanding), and closes on an apocalyptic poem of divine encounter: “And at last the heavenly trumpets will sound: / there will be no new being, and no new world. / God wanders among scattered shards of metal; / remember, human: from dust you are, and to dust you shall return!” This closing movement, unmistakably resonant with Pilinszky, demonstrates with particular force that the avant-garde poet also moves with assurance within more traditional lyric forms.
Háromlábú lovat etető lány (lit. Girl Feeding a Three-Legged Horse), 2009
The poet’s 2009 volume Háromlábú lovat etető lány is another unusual and daring experiment in which the author wrote prose poems to accompany Tibor Palkó’s delicate pencil drawings, largely surrealist in manner. In Gábor Bednanics’s view, the relationship is strikingly reversed here: the text “illustrates” the image, while verbal and visual signs interpret one another within the book’s self-contained world of private mythology. The primary setting of this mythic universe is the family vineyard. The twenty-one short texts paired with the twenty-one drawings most readily call to mind the lyric voice of Lajos Kassák, above all the self-clarifying idiom of Tisztaság könyve (lit. The Book of Purity), as Lóránt Kabdebó has aptly observed. The volume’s lyrical rhetoric also strongly recalls the biblically inflected diction of Japán hajtás, and in this respect it forms an organic continuation of the preceding book: once again, a family story unfolds from the lines, fragmentary yet coherent and interpretable, gradually assuming the contours of a private biblical narrative, while the everyday, profane milieu slowly and almost imperceptibly rises into the realm of the sacred. The closing lines read: “Perhaps there is no goal, no path, no time either. / Only lack. And quotation marks. Quotation-marked / lives.” These are deep, understanding-seeking words, demanding repeated rereading. As Zoltán Zsávolya, a fellow poet and generational contemporary, writes with precision of the volume: “The possibility of continuation is the essential question of this poetic cycle: the possibility of moving forward within transience. The word ‘hope’ is sounded in the cycle – not in the construction of individual existence, but in the building of the continuity of human existence. It is a formulation of the meaning of being a steward. The cycle’s wager is this: can the question of the individual’s stewardship receive a resolving answer from the steward of existence as a whole?”
The essayist
Hidak a Dunán. Esszék, tanulmányok (lit. Bridges on the Danube: Essays, Studies), 2005.
László L. Simon’s first collection of essays was published in 2005 and primarily brought together writings devoted to literary themes. The writer–poet–essayist opens the volume with a personal historical account, explaining that he comes from an old family of bridge builders, a background that binds him to the idea of bridge-building both in a literal and in a metaphorical sense. Nevertheless, the book is dominated by essays on literature. These include studies of major avant-garde figures such as Tibor Papp, Pál Nagy, and Bálint Szombathy, as well as a substantial, theoretically rigorous essay on concrete poetry which, at the beginning of the 2000s, filled a notable gap in Hungarian literary-critical discourse. What consistently stands out in Simon’s essayistic writing is that, alongside its thoroughness and erudition, it is marked throughout by an unusual immediacy and personal tone. In his perceptive review of the volume, István Csillag formulates this insight as follows: “If we are fortunate, one day we too may succeed in absorbing such wonders as deeply as they are absorbed into László L. Simon’s personal concerns. His concerns are public concerns. And he offers us the opportunity to recognise this.”
Személyes történelem (lit. Personal History), 2011
In his essay collection entitled Személyes történelem, the author continues the personal, literary essayistic prose inaugurated in his first volume of essays. In this book, he writes with affecting intimacy primarily about his attachments. For him, nothing is more important than the narrower and broader homeland – Gárdony, Fejér County, Hungary. The carefully composed essays trace an arc from birth to death and engage in sustained reflection on concepts that may appear antiquated to many, such as freedom and patriotism, while defending traditional values with uncompromising sincerity. As Imre Péntek noted in his review of the volume, perhaps the most weighty and consequential essay confronts the crimes of communism, drawing attention to the fact that one of the gravest transgressions of the former regime was “the appropriation of language”. Although the tone of the essays may initially seem markedly personal, their insights and conclusions at times attain genuine historical depth.
Szubjektív ikonosztáz (lit. Subjective Iconostasis), 2012
In his book entitled Szubjektív ikonosztáz, László L. Simon brings together his essays and studies devoted to art and the fine arts, presenting the reader with a fully mature, distinctive, and sensitive essayistic voice. One of the volume’s central concerns is an artistic movement that some have declared dead, yet which repeatedly disproves such claims by continually re-emerging and repositioning itself within new contexts – the avant-garde, a movement the author himself actively practises as a poet. He analyses the work of major figures such as Lajos Kassák, Bálint Szombathy, István Erőss, Károly Tamkó Sirató, and the architect Lajos Kozma, while also writing with equal critical validity about less widely known contemporary artists, including Patrícia Baktay, Sándor Bátai, Erzsébet Lovász, Barna Pető, and Krisztina Kókai. Fine art, poetry, photography, architecture – across a wide range of artistic disciplines and their products, the author articulates an avowedly subjective, essayistically personal perspective; yet his claims are consistently refined, persuasive, and well grounded, at times approaching scholarly rigour. László L. Simon’s essays display an exceptionally broad cultural erudition, but among their most persistent thematic concerns are memory and remembrance, as well as the question of sacrality. He practises, in a distinctly contemporary manner, a genre often considered fundamentally anachronistic. As Gábor Gulyás observes in his perceptive foreword to the volume: “Sacred art elevates, grasps the ungraspable, and, in the Aristotelian sense of the term, washes and purifies. Is this truly possible? Can catharsis in the traditional sense still occur in the twenty-first century? László L. Simon’s analyses demonstrate that it can: new, exalted perspectives are opening up.”
The Cultural Policy Thinker
Versenyhátrány. A (kultúr)politika fogságában (lit. Competitive Disadvantage: In the Grip of (Cultural) Politics), 2007
The author’s first volume of essays on cultural policy appeared in 2007. As a conservative cultural policy thinker, he primarily follows in the intellectual footsteps of Kunó Klebelsberg. He reflects extensively on tradition, the problem of national identity, and the role of national heritage, with the explicit aim of outlining a coherent Hungarian cultural policy programme. He offers informed reflections on public collections and literature, analyses the situation of writers’ organisations and the performing arts, and critically examines the flawed cultural policy decisions made by successive governments since the political transition. At the same time, he does not speak merely as a cultural theorist: as a cultural politician active within the political mainstream, he consistently seeks and proposes practical solutions to the problems he identifies.
A római szekér. Kulturális politika – politikai kultúra (lit. The Roman Chariot: Cultural Policy – Political Culture), 2010
László L. Simon’s second volume of cultural policy essays, A római szekér, was published in 2010, the year of the change of government, when the conservative Fidesz–KDNP alliance formed a government with a two-thirds parliamentary majority. In this book, the author analyses the cultural policies of previous administrations, once again drawing attention to the cultural-policy anomalies that have persisted since the political transition. He emphasises the necessity of supporting and developing the performing arts and devotes particular attention to the artistic field in which he himself is an active practitioner. He offers a diagnostic assessment of the state of literature, Hungarian book publishing, and reading habits around 2010, and advances innovative proposals for reform. The volume concludes with an interview with Imre Pozsgay, which examines the cultural policy of the Kádár regime and highlights those systemic shortcomings that survived even after the democratic transition.
Polgári kultúrpolitika. Eredmények és dilemmák (lit. Civic Cultural Policy: Results and Dilemmas), 2014
László L. Simon wrote Polgári kultúrpolitika in 2014 as a practising government-aligned cultural policymaker, fully conscious of his responsibilities. In this volume, he takes stock, among other things, of the outcomes of four years of cultural governance. He continues to follow in the footsteps of Kunó Klebelsberg, identifying the preservation of national values and of the cultural roots and identity of the community as his primary objective. He also confronts a number of historical failures; nevertheless, the tone of the essays is fundamentally optimistic, marked by a strong sense of initiative and commitment to public causes. He presents the positive achievements of interwar cultural policy as exemplary and regards them as a value base to which it is possible to return. The book addresses the challenges facing both print and online periodicals, perceptively noting the declining readership of traditional paper-based journals. As a professional deeply committed to the protection of cultural heritage, he also discusses the condition of rural castles and manor houses, emphasising the importance of safeguarding the built heritage. The volume concludes with a selection of the author’s parliamentary speeches, presented as documents of their time, followed by a personal autobiographical account reflecting his dual role as writer and cultural policymaker.
Körbejárni a hazát (lit. Around the Homeland), 2017
László L. Simon’s essay collection Körbejárni a hazát, published in 2017 and comprising both selected and new essays, is not merely a volume of cultural-policy writings but also a series of deeply personal confessions. Within this framework, the author symbolically traverses his homeland, seeking his own roots and identity. He takes stock of his family history, and through these personal narratives historical destinies are brought vividly to life. At the same time, he addresses the condition of literature and book publishing, pointing out that in the information society utilitarian considerations have moved to the fore and that, regrettably, people are reading less and less. He outlines the principal elements of conservative politics and contrasts their value system with the underlying logic of the former socialist regime. As Erzsébet Kelemen, his monographer, emphasises, in this book the author “alongside artistic questions […] addresses serious social, issues of national survival, existential and moral problems, and does so through a rich linguistic register”. The central theme of the volume is identity, and the core message of its essays is that, to echo Radnóti, one’s homeland cannot be merely a map.
Ki viszi a puskát? Emlékezet és politika (lit. Who Carries the Rifle? Memory and Politics), 2020
In his essay collection published in 2020, the writer and cultural policymaker primarily seeks to answer the question of what role opinion-forming intellectuals can assume, and how much influence they may wield, within a democratic political system. He offers a perceptive analysis of the enduring tragedy of the Trianon trauma, assesses the cultural-policy developments and achievements of the Fidesz–KDNP governments, and at the same time evokes, in his essays, exemplary figures from Hungarian history such as Dániel Berzsenyi, István Széchenyi, Albert Apponyi, Zoltán Magyary, the frequently cited intellectual precursor Kunó Klebelsberg, and Endre Ady. In these mature essays on cultural policy, László L. Simon ultimately concludes that while decisions must unquestionably be made by politicians democratically elected by the people, those politicians equally require the presence of opinion-forming intellectuals: their counsel, and the values and ideas they represent, function as indispensable points of reference. He also judiciously draws attention to the fact that within the Hungarian literary tradition the classical role of the writer has never been far removed from political engagement; at the same time, the role of the politician and that of the opinion-former are not identical, since the former entails decision-making power, which invariably carries a weighty responsibility.
A megőrzés kultúrája. Esszék (lit. The Culture of Preservation: Essays), 2023
The cultural-policy essay collection A megőrzés kultúrája appeared at a time when László L. Simon had already withdrawn from active party politics and, in a new role as an institutional leader, was serving the cause of Hungarian culture he holds so dear as Director General of the Hungarian National Museum. In these essays, the reader encounters a mature cultural-policy thinker of great erudition and pronounced responsibility, who, in his new capacity, arrives at the insight that a nation is, in essence, identical with its accumulated knowledge, and that a nation’s sovereignty, freedom, and indeed its very existence depend upon the preservation of this knowledge, its traditions, its culture, and its values. The backbone of the volume is formed by essays devoted to museums, to the possibilities of their renewal, and to the safeguarding of cultural heritage. As these texts make clear, a primary task of cultural policy and of the culture-shaping intelligentsia alike is the preservation of the nation’s knowledge and traditions and their transmission to future generations. As the editor, literary historian Márton Soltész, aptly observes in the volume’s afterword: “László L. Simon early on recognised the fundamental importance of this knowledge rooted in our national traditions, and he resolutely assumes the writerly responsibility that invariably accompanies such recognition.”
References
Bodor, Béla. “Önmagát rejtő titok” (lit. A Secret That Conceals Itself). Review of Egy paradigma lehetséges részlete (lit. A Possible Fragment of a Paradigm), by László L. Simon. Alföld, no. 9 (1998): 103–105.
Bohár, András. “Azok a bizonyos nyomok” (lit. Those Particular Traces). In András Bohár, Poétikák és világlátások, hermeneutikai áttekintések (lit. Poetics and Worldviews: Hermeneutic Surveys), 55–63. Dunaszerdahely: Nap, 2008.
Bolla, Ágnes. “Kép. Vers. Képvers” (lit. Image. Poem. Image-Poem). Kikötő Online, 21 February 2009.
G. Komoróczy, Emőke. “Poétikai átívelések” (lit. Poetic Transversals). Review of Hidak a Dunán (lit. Bridges over the Danube), by László L. Simon. Pannon Tükör, no. 5 (2005): 100–102.
G. Komoróczy, Emőke. “László L. Simon alkotói útja. A Magyar Műhely és az avant-garde” (lit. The Creative Path of László L. Simon: The Magyar Műhely and the Avant-Garde). Kortárs 2021, no. 11: 86–93.
Huszonöt év. László L. Simon műveiről. Válogatott tanulmányok, kritikák, ismertetések, befogadói olvasatok, pillanatképek (lit. Twenty-Five Years: On the Works of László L. Simon. Selected Studies, Criticism, Reviews, Reception Readings, Snapshots). Edited by Erzsébet Kelemen. Budapest: Szépirodalmi Figyelő Alapítvány, 2021.
Kabdebó, Lóránt. “Megértett disszonancia” (lit. Understood Dissonance). Review of the recent poetry of László L. Simon. Magyar Nemzet, 23 August 2008.
Kabdebó, Lóránt. “A test kivirágzik” (lit. The Body Blossoms). Review of Háromlábú lovat etető lány (lit. Girl Feeding a Three-Legged Horse), by Tibor Palkó and László L. Simon. Palócföld 2011, nos. 5–6: 129.
Kelemen, Erzsébet. “Konkrét költészet, lettrizmus, konceptualizmus. Irányok találkozása és az intermediális hálózat lehetőségei László L. Simon költészetében” (lit. Concrete Poetry, Lettrism, Conceptualism: The Convergence of Directions and the Possibilities of the Intermedial Network in the Poetry of László L. Simon). Magyar Napló 2018, no. 6: 40–44.
Kelemen, Erzsébet. A szavak ereje. László L. Simon alkotói munkásságáról (lit. The Power of Words: On the Creative Oeuvre of László L. Simon). Budapest: Szépirodalmi Figyelő Alapítvány, 2021.
Papp, Tibor. “A költészet váratlan arca” (lit. The Unexpected Face of Poetry). Review of Egy paradigma lehetséges részlete (lit. A Possible Fragment of a Paradigm), by László L. Simon. Magyar Napló 1997, nos. 7–8: 62–63.
Pécsi, Györgyi. “Szubjektív könyvtár” (lit. Subjective Library). Review of Versenyhátrány. A (kultúr)politika fogságában (lit. Competitive Disadvantage: In the Captivity of (Cultural) Politics), by László L. Simon. Irodalmi Jelen 2008: 23.
Prágai, Tamás. “László L. Simon: Nem lokalizálható” (lit. László L. Simon: Not Localisable). Szabad Föld, 26 September 2003.
Péntek, Imre. “Megéledő konzervatív hagyomány” (lit. A Revived Conservative Tradition). Review of Körbejárni a hazát. Esszék (lit. Circling the Homeland: Essays), by László L. Simon. Búvópatak, October 2018: 25–27.
Pósa, Zoltán. “Régi és új mítoszok. László L. Simon esszépanorámája” (lit. Old and New Myths: The Essay Panorama of László L. Simon). Magyar Nemzet, 4 August 2012: 35.
Soltész, Márton. “Utószó” (lit. Afterword). In László L. Simon, A megőrzés kultúrája. Esszék (lit. The Culture of Preservation: Essays), 233–237. Budapest: Közép- és Kelet-európai Történelem és Társadalom Kutatásáért Közalapítvány, 2023.
Thimár, Attila. “László L. Simon: Japán hajtás” (lit. László L. Simon: Japanese Shoot). Szépirodalmi Figyelő 2008, no. 3: 80–81.
Végh, Attila. “Memento mori.” Review of Japán hajtás (lit. Japanese Shoot), by László L. Simon. Magyar Napló 2009, no. 4: 40.
Veszprémy, László Bernát. “A nyúl puskát ragadott” (lit. The Rabbit Took Up a Gun). Review of an essay selection by László L. Simon. Mandiner, 25 May 2021.
Zsávolya, Zoltán. “Nem is olyan ‘nehéz’ a föld. Portré László L. Simonról” (lit. The Earth Is Not So ‘Heavy’: A Portrait of László L. Simon). In Pályatükrök. Húsz portré fiatal alkotókról (lit. Career Mirrors: Twenty Portraits of Young Creators), edited by Andrea Ekler and Kinga Erős, 21–28. Budapest: Kortárs Kiadó, 2009.
Zsávolya, Zoltán. “A szomorúság analitikája” (lit. The Analytics of Sadness). Review of Háromlábú lovat etető lány (lit. Girl Feeding a Three-Legged Horse), by Tibor Palkó and László L. Simon. Magyar Napló 2010, no. 1: 39–41.
[2024]