David Dorosz’s name may be familiar to many from politics. A few years ago, he stepped back from active political life and turned to writing. He has previously published in Politico Europe, Democracy Now! and The New York Times, and in March he made his debut with his first novel, the thriller We All Leave, at the Margó Literary Festival.
How does someone go from politician to writer? What carries them from one world to the other? That’s what this interview is about too.
You come from the world of politics. When did you decide to swap speeches and draft bills for storytelling instead? Why did you “leave”?
Writing has always played an important role in my life — as a politician, I regularly published in the Hungarian press, and my work also appeared in Politico Europe, Democracy Now! and The New York Times. These were mainly political analyses, and based on them I wrote a non-fiction book in 2019 called Az idő szorításában, which dealt with the climate catastrophe, artificial intelligence and global tensions.
I worked on We All Leave for nearly two years, and it was published in March.
I’m not the first former politician to write a book — that much is clear. But I feel that the fifteen years of experience I gained in politics and business, both in Hungary and abroad, gave me a uniquely distinctive voice from which a truly emotional, tension-filled thriller could emerge. A story that both entertains and holds up a mirror to our everyday reality. Every line of it contains a part of me — because I saw, heard or experienced every element.
To answer your question: for me, politics and storytelling are in many ways about the same thing — understanding people and their motivations. So in truth, I’ve always dealt in stories. Only now they exist in a tangible form — sitting on the shelves of bookshops.
What takes you from one world to the other? What is it that you can say in writing, but couldn’t as a politician?
We All Leave is not simply a story, but the imprint of an inner struggle. I wrote about things in it — fears, silences, things left unsaid — that I carried within me for years, but which I could not voice in public life. Because there was no space for them, or because there was no language for them. For me, writing is freedom. But this was not an escape from politics — it was a return to myself. For the first time, I did not have to weigh every word. I only had to stand by them. We All Leave is an honest story, with sometimes harsh truths.
We All Leave — an interesting choice of title. Where does a phrase like that come from — experience, anger, fear?
From the countless meetings, conversations and handshakes of the past 15 years, both as a politician and as a private person. Those thousands of human stories and destinies formed the basis of the writing. Without revealing the twists of the plot, I feel that in today’s Hungary, everyone leaves in some sense — physically, emotionally, morally. Because the world we live in forces us to. My characters struggle with this too, and often have to make fatal decisions. Many people set out to write an “I came from this” story; by contrast, I wanted to write a “we came from this” book.
The story takes place in a villa on the Balaton, with a group of friends who have, over time, grown up and drifted apart. So where is the thriller?
“I understand the question, since you’ve read it,” he says — editor’s note: laughing — “and yes, it isn’t a classic thriller. But perhaps that’s exactly why it’s worth turning the question around: what does it take to make a truly compelling thriller?”
The purpose of the genre is to create constant tension and emotional intensity in the reader. At the centre of the story is not necessarily the identity of the perpetrator, but whether the protagonist will survive, whether they can expose the culprit, whether they can prevent the next catastrophe — or simply: what happens now? The basic motifs of a thriller are pursuit, paranoia, situations of entrapment, and a race against time.
We All Leave is built on these elements: the secrets of the past and the events of the present gradually corner the characters, while the tension in the reader keeps rising.
It is a contemporary novel because it is set in today’s Hungary — not only in the political sphere, but also in its psychological traps. It unfolds in situations where what is at stake is often not truth, but survival.
Your novel is not the journey of one person, but of many lives running in parallel. Why did you choose this mosaic-like structure?
“Because that’s how we live. There isn’t one main character, but many supporting characters who, from time to time, become the main characters in one another’s lives. We All Leave starts out from a group of friends — shared plans, a shared language, a generation. Then come the years, the decisions, the compromises — and these pull people apart. Or perhaps suspiciously bring them closer together. Because the highest stakes, the most hard-fought battles, are found in these close relationships: family, friendship, love.
If I want to write honestly about this generation — people in their thirties and forties who grew up after the fall of communism and are now responsible adults themselves — then I need multiple perspectives. Because it’s not only about where someone ended up, but what they became along the way.
What interested me was this: what price do we pay for getting on in life? What does success mean in Hungary today? And what do we lose in the process — relationships, backbone, memories?
That’s why this is not one person’s story — it’s ours. Mosaic-like, fragmented, but very real.”
Childbearing, infertility, the female body, domestic violence. Why would a man turn to these subjects?
Perhaps the better question is: why wouldn’t I?
Childbearing, infertility, the female body, abuse — these are not “women’s issues”. They are human fates, shared traumas. We may experience them differently, but their consequences run through all our lives.
And these are mostly silent crises. They may be talked about behind four walls, but beneath the surface there is shame, silence and denial.
The female characters in We All Leave each make different choices — and pay different prices for them. Slaps. Physical, emotional, financial. My female characters receive all of them. Part of the book is about how they deal with these things, but none of them is simply a “victim” or a “hero”. They are strong, yes — but strength does not mean they cannot be exhausted, broken, angry or completely overwhelmed.
What really interested me were their emotional layers, their inner struggles, the cracks beneath an appearance of stability. What is behind a smile. Behind a silence. Behind an exaggerated remark.
As a writer, that psychological complexity fascinated me. As a man, I wanted to better understand stories I had long only observed from the outside. Because these are not issues belonging to “the other sex” — they are part of our shared reality. And if we want to speak honestly about them, what matters is not who is writing, but whether they have the courage to say it out loud.
In the book, the system has a harsh impact on the characters’ lives. Can a country’s story be told through private lives like this — while still remaining literature, rather than becoming a political indictment?
I think it’s the only way.
What has happened over the past fifteen years has now seeped into everything. The system is not a separate box that we close in the morning when we step out into the street — it is there in our families, our friendships, the dynamics of our relationships.
We All Leave is not a classic political crime novel — but it is permeated by the atmosphere created by the system. The suffocating mood, the unspoken fears, the compromises — these are not in the background, they are inside us.
And yes, I believe that if we are talking about contemporary literature, then what surrounds us must be part of it too. You cannot write an authentic novel if you turn your head away from what is happening in reality.
That is why what Anna, one of my characters, says is so true: “What is happening in this country is the thriller.”
And almost everyone is among the victims. What else could the task of contemporary literature be, if not to speak about these wounds?
The characters are not heroes. Was it a deliberate decision that you didn’t want to save anyone?
There’s no need to save them, because by the end of the story those who are able to face themselves, and act bravely and decisively, end up in a better position. Courage always pays off — in the story, and in life too.
You said that it was in writing that you found the freedom you didn’t get in politics. What does being a writer mean to you now?
I’m full of stories I want to tell. Stories that are honest and hard-hitting, but also engaging to read. I’m already working on my second novel, which will be published next year — it will be a thriller too, just on an even bigger scale. A wider space, a longer time span, higher stakes.
I believe that in such a unpredictable world, storytelling is not just an opportunity, but a responsibility. It should not only hold your attention, but also ask questions. And it should not turn away from the things that are hardest to say aloud.
What do you hope: that anyone who reads We All Leave all the way through will look at their own life differently too?
My aim was to write about tough, hard-hitting subjects in a light, fast-paced style. American authors such as Don Winslow and Attica Locke were an influence on me in this respect. It’s been just under a month since the book was published, and the first reader reactions are coming in, which is incredibly gratifying to read. They show that people finish the book in a day or two, and in the process their own life situations, decisions and conflicts also come into a different light, while experiencing all the excitement of a thriller as they read We All Leave.
An author could hardly wish for more than that.