Hostage of Stupidity
A mirror held up to an age in which noise replaces thought, slogans replace responsibility, and beautifully packaged nonsense begins to look like common sense.
Discover the bookFiction · Essays · Quiet satire
Alex Buday
The world has never suffered from a shortage of explanations. Only, occasionally, from an excess of confidence in them.
Stories about memory, history and the private cost of public events—alongside essays for a world that keeps confusing slogans with truth.
Writing without illusions.Latest Writing
About the writer
Behind the words,
a certain way of looking.
Some stories begin with history. Others with a headline, a border, or the peculiar confidence of someone who has not yet realised they are mistaken. The interesting part is usually what they have in common.
Alex Buday is a Central European writer of fiction, essays and literary satire. His work explores memory, history and the private cost of public events—along with the illusions people build to make power, progress and everyday absurdity feel reassuringly normal.
His fiction is shaped by borders, silence and the unfinished histories of Central Europe. His essays move through politics, culture, technology and human nature with a quiet irony and a persistent suspicion of easy answers.
He is the founder and editor of Illusions Not Included (INI), an independent multilingual literary publication. Across books, stories and shorter reflections, the same question keeps returning: what remains when the official explanation has finished speaking?
Latest writing
Things we tell
ourselves.
Stories, essays and satire about the assumptions we rarely notice until they begin running the world.
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Browse all writing on INI INI · Free to read
The Decent Man Reads the Room First…
Decent people rarely abandon their principles. They simply learn when not to bring them up. At a dinner party, an absent acquaintance is discussed with such thoughtful concern that he gradually becomes responsible for the injustice done to him. One guest knows better. He has seen the evidence. But the wine is good, the company agreeable, and the truth has an unfortunate habit of ruining perfectly pleasant evenings. He has no intention of changing his mind. He would just like to be invited back.
Any Resemblance to Humans Is Intentional · Paid writing
The Bird of Peace We’re No Longer Allowed to Feed…
The pigeon carried our messages long before we invented ways to read, copy and monetise them. When its services were no longer required, we rewarded it with an honourable new role: symbol of peace. The white dove still enjoys an impeccable reputation on posters. Its grey relative continues to wander through the city, where its very existence has become a matter of municipal concern. Human gratitude is a remarkable thing. It asks so little of a symbol, and rather a lot of anything still alive.
INI · Free to read
When Tyranny Learns to Smile…
There was a time when rulers needed balconies, uniforms and monumental portraits. The modern strongman requires little more than a well-lit studio, a dependable news feed and the occasional visit to a carefully selected supermarket. The cameras record his warmth. The bodyguards maintain a respectful distance, occupying much of the aisle in the process. Behind them, ordinary shoppers attempt the difficult task of looking entirely natural. By evening, the visit will have become proof of humility, courage and an unbreakable bond with the nation. The audience will be busy discussing the performance. What the government actually did while everyone was watching is another matter.
Henry & Margaret: Morning Coffee Chronicles · Paid writing
Mars Needs Politicians
Henry had found an article about settling Mars. Future colonists, it said, would need exceptional adaptability, a talent for handling crises, and the ability to establish a functioning society. Margaret needed no time to consider the candidates. Scientists and engineers were clearly unsuitable. They might build something that worked. Within minutes, Mars had a provisional president, several ministers, and a committee to oversee construction. The settlement itself could be dealt with later. For a moment, a one-way ticket sounded like a remarkably sensible idea. Then Henry began to wonder what, exactly, it would solve.
INI · Free to read
Cheap Answers
Most of us are not short of answers. We have careers, savings plans, health metrics, books, podcasts — and a reading list for whatever remains unresolved. One quiet evening, an ordinary man begins to notice how neatly certainty can organise a life, especially when the untidy parts are treated as exceptions.
Any Resemblance to Humans Is Intentional · Paid writing
The Relative We Turned Into an Insult
We have composed operas, founded institutions, launched spacecraft, and acquired an impressive vocabulary for distinguishing ourselves from the animal kingdom. The monkey, unfortunately, has continued to behave in ways we recognise rather too well: imitating others, competing for attention, occasionally making a spectacle of itself. In a forest, such behaviour is merely animal. In a boardroom, it may qualify as strategy. And yet, when we want to insult someone, it is still the monkey whose name we borrow.
An independent literary space
Illusions
Not Included.
Essays, satire, stories and a few inconvenient observations about the world we have grown accustomed to calling normal.
Intelligent satire, personal observation, and a healthy suspicion of anything that describes itself as inevitable.
Visit INI Published in English and HungarianBooks & stories
History,
remembered personally.
Fiction, essays and satire shaped by Central Europe, private memory and the fragile illusions of freedom.
1984: A Summer on the Other Side of the Wall
A lyrical story of borders, silence and memory, set in the final years of the Cold War—and in the uneasy space between one life and the next.
Discover the e-bookThe Central European stories
Chernobyl · National Mourning · The Wall · Velvet · The Border
View the author page on Amazon