Szerb Antal

[Stewart]

Antal Szerb (May 1, 1901, Budapest - January 27, 1945, Balf) was a noted Hungarian scholar and writer. He is recognized as one of the major Hungarian literary personalities of the 20th century.

Szerb was born in 1901 to assimilated Jewish parents in Budapest, but baptized Catholic. He studied Hungarian, German and later English, obtaining a doctorate in 1924. From 1924 to 1929 he lived in France and Italy, also spending a year in London, England.

As a student he published essays on Georg Trakl and Stefan George, and quickly established a formidable reputation as a scholar, writing erudite studies of William Blake and Henrik Ibsen among other works. Elected President of the Hungarian Literary Academy in 1933 - aged just 32 -, he published his first novel, The Pendragon Legend (which draws upon his personal experience of living in Britain) the following year. His second and best-known work, Utas és holdvilág, known in English as Journey by Moonlight, came out in 1937. He was made a Professor of Literature at the University of Szeged the same year. He was twice awarded the Baumgarten Prize, in 1935 and 1937.

In 1941 he published a History of World Literature which continues to be authoritative today. He also published a volume on novel theory and a book about the history of Hungarian literature. Given numerous chances to escape antisemitic persecution (as late as 1944), he chose to remain in Hungary, where his last novel, a Pirandellian fantasy about a king staging a coup against himself, then having to impersonate himself, Oliver VII, was published in 1942. It was passed off as a translation from the English, as no 'Jewish' work could have been printed at the time.

Szerb was deported to a concentration camp late in 1944, and was beaten to death there in January 1945. He was 43.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Az angol irodalom kistükre (1929) [Eng: An Outline of English Literature]
• Cynthia (1932)
• A magyar irodalom története, (1934) [Eng: History of Hungarian literature]
• A Pendragon legenda (1934) [Eng: The Pendragon Legend)
• Szerelem a palackban (1935) [Eng: Love in the Bottle, short stories]
• Budapesti útikalauz marslakók számára (1935) [Eng: A Martian's Guide to Budapest]
• Utas és holdvilág (1937) [Eng: Journey by Moonlight]
• A világirodalom története (1941) [Eng: History of World Literature]
• VII. Olivér (1943) [Eng: Oliver VII]
• A királyné nyaklánca (1943) [Eng: The Queen's Necklace]
• Száz vers (1943/1944) [Eng: 100 poems]

RELATED LINKS

• Szerb Antal on Wikipedia
• Essay by Poszler György (from Hungarian Quarterly)

[Stewart]

As far as I can tell, in the UK at least, only three translations are available of this author's work: The Pendragon Legend, Journey By Moonlight, and Oliver VII. It's more than other Hungarians, I suppose.

I have all three of them, and haven't read them yet, but I did, a couple of years back, sample The Pendragon Legend. It's set in Wales, as you may guess from the title, and it's a mix of the gothic, a dash of romance and, according to the flap murder mystery too. I recall the book being intriguing and enjoyable with it - the only reason I set it aside was that something else came along and I wanted to read that more...and then something else came along until it became too hazy to go back to and start all over.

[ajourneyroundmyskull]

Antal Szerb is a true master. Seemingly out of nowhere, this year he became one of my favorite authors.

I highly recommend the Pendragon Legend. The zippy, genre-book mash-ups made me anticipate a satisfying conclusion, which it doesn't really have, so try not to read it that way. My recommendation is to just savor the humor and wonderful writing. I still think about all the wild characters too.

I made it half-way through Journey By Moonlight before getting side-tracked, but this is in no way a reflection of its merit. For me, it hits way higher emotionally than Pendragon Legend.

Interestingly, I have a gigantic textbook on Hungarian Lit., and Szerb is not even given his own entry. I don't know if this has to do with politics, his obscurity at the time, or some other reason (in my opinion it's a real long shot that all the authors in the textbook could be better writers).

I hadn't known of his horrible death and am very sad to hear it.

[Eric]

The thorough article about him by György Poszler, as mentioned in the original posting by Stewart puts some meat on the bones.

I'm sure there will be Dutch translations of his work.