Péter Zilahy
Hungarian writer
Péter Zilahy (born 1970 in Budapest) is a Hungarian writer and performer whose prose and poetry has been widely translated and who has often used photography, interactive media and performance art in his work.
Literary work
Zilahy's book of poems, Statue Under White Sheet, Ready to Jump (Lepel alatt ugrásra kész szobor) was published in 1993.
His play, Der lange Weg nach nebenan (A hosszú út közelre), has been performed at the Volksbühne Berlin.
His dictionary novel The Last Window-Giraffe (Az utolsó ablakzsiráf) was published in 1998 and has since been translated into 27 languages. He has had exhibitions at the Ludwig Museum Budapest and the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Germany.
The Last Window-Giraffe
The Last Window-Giraffe is a memoir about the absurdity of everyday life under a dictatorship. It is written in the style of an actual Hungarian children's dictionary, The Window-Giraffe (in the Hungarian version of this A to Z,
Ablak=Window is the first item and Zsiráf=Giraffe is the last). The dictionary explained the whole world in simple words, where everything was in order and problems were always solved.
The Last Window-Giraffe also recounts the events of the Belgrade protests of 1996-97, which it describes as being symbolic of protests everywhere in their courage and absurdity. The novel is filled with Zilahy's own photographs, and is an insight into the world behind the Iron Curtain.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Péter Zilahy” is hungarian writer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Péter, Zilahy and Hungarian, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q320946. VIAF identifies the subject as 84213842. The Library of Congress control number is n2007045561. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1970, 1993, 1998 and 1996.
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This entry incorporates text from “Péter Zilahy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.