David Szalay wonders whether AI could write hockey smut

Hungarian-British author David Szalay, winner of the Booker Prize for his novel "Flesh," is navigating a demanding press schedule at the Sydney Writers' Festival. The novel, which chronicles a teenager's journey from working-class Hungary to London's elite, has been lauded for its exploration of "living, and the strangeness of living" and "what is fundamentally unsayable."

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It's sort of more American than Europe and more European than America and maybe it is in a kind of sweet spot.

During a brief interview, Szalay shared his positive impressions of Australia, describing it as a unique blend of American and European influences. When asked about his favorite Australian novels, he cited Richard Flanagan's "Narrow Road to the Deep North" and David Malouf's "Fly Away Peter" as standout works. He also recommended "Fateless" by Imre Kertész, a Nobel laureate, as a powerful novel based on personal Holocaust experiences, noting its surprising inclusion of dark humor despite its tragic subject matter.

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I know it's not a recent book, it was published many years ago, but in the last six months, I read Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan. I thought that was brilliant. I also read, not that long ago, a book called Fly Away Peter by David Malouf.

Szalay, who admits his Hungarian is not proficient enough to read original works, relies on translations. He highlighted Kertész's "Fateless" for its authority and unique blend of sadness and humor, stemming from the author's direct experience.

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I guess my favourite Hungarian novel is a novel called Fateless by Imre Kertész, who won the Nobel Prize about 20 years ago. It's a novel based on his personal experience of the Holocaust. [...] it has an authority and it's kind of, it's quite funny. And he's allowed to do that because it is based on, he has the authority to be funny about it. It's not a comedy, it is a sad, crushing book ultimately, obviously, but it has comedy in it.

Amidst discussions about his work, Szalay touched upon the growing conversation surrounding artificial intelligence in the arts. He mused about AI's potential creative capabilities, specifically questioning whether it could write "hockey smut," a topic that emerged during a radio interview where he was presented with an AI-generated opening paragraph for a sequel to his novel "Flesh."

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Well, I was doing a radio interview a few months ago in London, it was actually a kind of live interview, and they sort of ambushed me. They'd asked some AI to write the first paragraph of a sequel to Flesh. I mean, to be fair to them, they did say, "is it OK if I read this out?" And I guess I coul