An Interview with Szilvia Molnar

I met Szilvia Molnar in 2010. She was dating my editor at the time. Soft spoken, smart, and from Sweden, is all I knew about her for years. She began publishing poems in literary journals and in 2014 did a photo series imitating male writers smoking cigarettes. She also started making all these weird little art objects she posted on her social media. Her first book, Soft Split, published this month by Future Tense is a strong debut. I feel lucky to have read it pre-publication. I emailed Szilvia while she was traveling in Sweden and Norway, then back to Brooklyn where she lives, to talk about creation, desire, office life, filth, and John Goodman.  

—Shane Jones

THE BELIEVER: Harmony Korine said something like, “I don’t really have anything to say,” and discussed how he wants a film, or a piece of art, to just “wash over” the viewer. Soft Split really has this feel, with all the grayness of the city and the repetition of the color pink (even the volcano I see as pink). It creates a great mood with image and color. It doesn’t rely heavily on plot.

SZILVIA MOLNAR: Soft Split started as a series of dreams which I wrote down last winter and then typed up. But after I did that, I wasn’t sure what they could do on their own or what I wanted to do with them. What stayed obvious were some of the repeating themes (the frustrations, the colors, the sense of being pulled in different directions) and I decided to bring them forward even more, make up scenes and stories (keep the same colors) and see how far I could take it.

If Korine doesn’t have anything to say, what does he want to “wash over” the viewer with? It’s not like he’s not bringing anything to the table.

When you’re writing, do you know where you want to move in between the real and the unreal? Like, let’s say we agree that an office environment is as real as it gets, do you decide to create some cracks, destroy the cubicle, and bring some un-realness into play or does it feel more like a reflex?

BLVR: Korine seems very much a “groove guy” as certain musicians are “groove guys” who don’t care about lyrics so much as feel.

I believe the real and the unreal exist in the same universe. An office might feel, at first, “as real as it gets,” but the more time you spend in an office the more you realize it’s one of the most unreal places around. There’s...