If it is a task at the verge of impossibility to recommend all the Hungarian writers I would like to, it is only slightly less hard to select just a handful to share. There are, for example, the many writers designated in Hungarian as “classical”, the word itself more or less synonymous with deceased (I still recall the response from one online bookseller with respect to a leading contemporary poet of the older generation – “Not classical! She lives!”), whose work has never been translated, or was poorly translated, or at best has appeared only in fragments. They well could be designated as a “canon,” in the sense of an indigenous scaffolding of literary knowledge with which every educated Hungarian is presumed to have much more than a passing acquaintance. Obviously, a nation with Hungary’s history and geography will certainly have experienced strong politicization of its literary canon, and the process is hardly a merely historical question, if we recall the recent controversies over official attempts at bringing right-wing nationalist authors directly into the Hungarian school curriculum. Nevertheless, the ranks of those Hungarian writers seen as essential have remained surprisingly autonomous throughout the tortuous course of ideologies and power-systems, and—at least for the pre-World War II authors—there is far more consensus on the individual figures in the canon than might be expected.
So I could recommend a historical canon. On the other hand, there are the writers active today, the living and thus un-”classical” creators across several generations. There are senior figures with definite international name recognition, even despite recent losses (most notably Péter Esterházy this past year); there is the post-1989 generation, which is now moving into middle age; there are the very youngest authors still persisting with a commitment to the Hungarian language and its legacy in spite of the illiberality and defiant philistinism of much of Hungarian public life today.
more here.