Two Literature Classes, One Shared Mission: Literature at Centrál Café

From September 2026, two free Hungarian literature classes welcome secondary school groups at Centrál Grand Café in Budapest. The Centrál Literary Salon takes students into the world of the Nyugat literary journal and café literary life through creative writing. The new Nobel Legacy class introduces the work of Hungary’s two Nobel Prize-winning writers, Imre Kertész and László Krasznahorkai.

From September 2026, two special literary programmes welcome secondary school students at Centrál Grand Café. Alongside the well-known Centrál Literary Salon, a new initiative has arrived: Hungarian literature classes dedicated to Hungary’s Nobel Prize legacy. The two programmes approach Hungarian literature in different ways, but they have one thing in common: outside the classroom, in a historic café setting, they make literature personal and something students can truly experience.

For us, this goes beyond individual cultural events: these initiatives are an important part of our cultural and social responsibility. The aim is for the values of Hungarian literature to live not only in textbooks, but to become an experience young people can connect with through their own thoughts, questions and writing.

A café whose history includes literature

The history of Centrál Grand Café is closely intertwined with Hungarian literature. Centrál is itself an important part of Hungarian literary history: in 1908, it became an important meeting place for the writers and editors of Nyugat, and writers such as Endre Ady, Mihály Babits, Dezső Kosztolányi and Frigyes Karinthy frequented the café.

That is why we don’t treat this heritage as a mere historical memory. Our aim is to pass on our cultural traditions in the present, and to create a community space where talking about literature still feels natural today.

The two literary programmes for secondary school students carry this idea forward.

Centrál Literary Salon: a literature class in the footsteps of Nyugat

The Centrál Literary Salon is already well known among secondary school students and teachers. This free, unconventional literature class for school groups presents the history of Hungarian literature not in a traditional classroom, but in Centrál’s historic café space.

At its heart are the legacy of Nyugat and café culture. Students get to know the intellectual world in which the leading Hungarian writers and poets of the first half of the 20th century created their work and met one another.

But the Literary Salon is not just a history lecture. Participants connect with literature through interactive tasks, conversations and creative writing. During the sessions they can also write their own poems, becoming not only readers but also creators of the literary experience.

That is why one of the programme’s key goals is to make sure Hungarian language and literature don’t appear to young people as mere curriculum. We want to offer an experience in which students discover that literature can also be a way to express their own thoughts and their own voice.

New literature class: the legacy of our Nobel laureates at Centrál

In September 2026, Centrál’s literary programme opens a new chapter. The Nobel Legacy initiative focuses on the life’s work of Hungarian literature’s two Nobel laureates, Imre Kertész and László Krasznahorkai.

The programme starts from the idea that the world-class works of Hungarian literature can only truly stay alive if we make them close and accessible to the next generations.

The Nobel literature classes offer secondary school students an interactive, experience-based encounter with the work of Imre Kertész and László Krasznahorkai. Once again, the sessions are hosted by the historic Centrál Café, so the programme and the venue together create a special setting in which students can meet works of Hungarian literature of international significance.

The initiative does not see itself as an alternative to school education. Quite the opposite: its aim is to reinforce – in a special venue, in a shared, experience-based format – the values that school literature teaching is also built on: reading, writing, thinking and discovering cultural heritage.

Two programmes, two eras, one shared goal

The Centrál Literary Salon and the Nobel Legacy literature classes approach Hungarian literature from different angles.

The Central Literary Salon introduces students to the Nyugat era and the world of classic café literary life. Through creative writing and thinking together, it shows how literature can become a personal experience.

The Nobel literature class, by contrast, turns the spotlight on two contemporary Hungarian bodies of work that hold an outstanding place internationally. Through the work of Imre Kertész and László Krasznahorkai, students can also see the significance of Hungarian literature on the world stage.

Yet both programmes return to the same idea: literature remains a living heritage as long as there is someone to pass it on, and someone to discover it.

Passing on culture as social responsibility

For us, preserving cultural heritage is inseparable from the everyday life of the café. Given its history, literature, ideas and community encounters have always been an integral part of Centrál’s identity.

The free programmes created for secondary school students are therefore also an important part of our social responsibility. The initiative gives young people the chance to access cultural experiences regardless of financial barriers, and to encounter Hungarian literature in a historic venue that is itself part of this heritage.

The shared message of the Centrál Literary Salon and the Nobel literature class is simple: culture lives on when we share it.

Literature in a historic café

It is a special opportunity for us that its literary programmes are hosted not in a neutral educational space, but in the historic café itself. Students can talk about literature within the same walls where members of the creative circle around Nyugat once met.

This setting is one of the programmes’ most important features: literature doesn’t appear as isolated curriculum, but as part of a story, a place and a shared experience.

So from September 2026, two different literature classes await secondary school students at Centrál. One brings them closer to the legacy of Nyugat and classic Hungarian literature, the other to the Nobel Prize-winning work of Imre Kertész and László Krasznahorkai.

Because at Centrál, literature isn’t just part of the past. It’s a living heritage that the next generations can keep writing.