Just over ten years ago, author Balázs Zágoni was awarded MAI’s David Alexander Author Fund in 2014 to complete his young adult science fiction novel set in a future Eastern Europe, Sphere, and received training from award-winning author Stephen Lawhead. Sphere was picked up by Hungary’s biggest publisher for children and youth, and launched in 2018 both in Hungary and Balázs hometown of Cluj in Romania. The book received several awards in Hungary and Romania. Balázs shares his journey in coming to Christ, and his subsequent experience in leading a Christian publishing house in Romania.
Finding the Father to the Fatherless
Five years after the fall of communism in Romania, I was 19 years old—and I had already lost my father.
I had many long discussions with a friendly pastor, and I started to read the Bible. That was a big discovery, but difficult. My biggest fear was that if I became a Christian, I would lose my clarity in thinking and especially in creating. (Oh, what a fool I was…)
I also remember reading and being deeply touched by Elisabeth Elliot’s book, Shadow of the Almighty: The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot. I remember wanting to obey God, but I was afraid that God would send me as a missionary somewhere, instead of making me a writer. (This fear seems so naïve and funny now.)
I struggled with God for more than a year before finally admitting: He is there, He is alive, and through Jesus Christ He has opened the door for me to live, too. Psalm 68 touched me deeply, that God is “a father to the fatherless.”
A season in leading a publishing team
Leading a Christian publishing house was in a way the most beautiful and at the same time the most difficult time of my life.
I met and made friends at MAI, and I read many good Christian books and manuscripts. This enriched my spiritual life. This is the thing I am missing a bit, now that I work in academia.
The most difficult part was relying on God for all resources. We never had enough money for the next month’s salaries—sometimes not even the current month.
We lost precious people because we couldn’t pay them well.
And though God miraculously provided all the time, which was an opportunity to rejoice and to be humbled, it was still very stressful and consuming.
The lesson I learned is that the publishing house belongs to God. He provides and wants us to rely on Him every day.
The greatest opportunities in Christian publishing in Romania today are to stir up interest for the Bible, retelling for new generations the old stories of faith, in new forms.
Continuing to write stories of faith for future generations
My sixteenth book, The Star and the Captain, came out last fall and it’s a young adult fiction novel for the age group 12+. It is about the power of friendship and sacrifice, set in Budapest during World War 2 and the Hungarian Holocaust. It is based on a lot of research and many real stories. The book is aimed at readers who want to ask themselves: how would I have acted and reacted during those testing times?
My upcoming book is for the 9+ generation. It tells the story of how a child’s prayer can lead to the collapse of a totalitarian regime. While it is fiction, this book is partly based on the life of one of my former schoolmates. It’s the story of testing God with our prayers–while God also tests us with His answers, which are often not what we expect, but in the end are satisfying in a way that surpasses all expectations.
Praying for Christian writers
I would deeply appreciate readers adopting the Serenity prayer for writers—to pray this for me, and for all Christian writers, “God, grant me the serenity to accept that there are things I cannot write, the courage to write the things I can and should, and the wisdom to know the difference.”