Hungarian Nobel laureate lashes out at homeland

The Nobel Prize-winning Hungarian author Imre Kertesz had much praise for his hometown of Berlin, but said his birthplace, Budapest, had been "completely balkanized" in an interview published in the weekend edition of German daily Die Welt.

"I am a metropolitan person, I am and always have been. A metropolitan person does not belong to Budapest. The city is completely balkanised. A metropolitan person belongs to Berlin!" Kertesz told the paper.

Kertesz complained the situation in the Hungarian capital had "continuously worsened" in the past decade. "Far-right extremists and anti-Semites have the say.

The old vices of the Hungarians, their dishonesty and their penchant for repression still thrive, now as before. Hungary in war, Hungary and fascism, Hungary and socialism: nothing is processed, everything is made up with pretty colours," he said.

Kertesz said he was "a product of European culture". "Racist, national affiliations do not apply to me," he added.

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