Magda Szabó

Magda Szabó ( 5 October 1917 – 19 November 2007) was a Hungarian novelist. Doctor of philology, she also wrote dramas, essays, studies, memoirs, poetry and children's literature. She was a founding member of the , an online digital repository of Hungarian literature. She is the most translated Hungarian author, with publications in 42 countries and over 30 languages. Her father, Elek Szabó (1879–1959), an academic and public official, taught her to speak Latin fluently from childhood, gave her the foundation of her extensive knowledge of European antiquity and an appreciation of ancient Roman and Greek history and literature. Her mother, Lenke Jablonczay (1884–1967), was herself a writer, although her works were never published. The influence and example of her parents played an important part in Szabó’s life. Storytelling and playing theatre were everyday activities in her childhood, both with her parents and by herself.

Szabó graduated from secondary school in 1935 in the Dóczy Institute for Girls’ Education of Debrecen (today ), where she had studied for twelve years. She studied to become a teacher of Hungarian and Latin at the István Tisza Hungarian Royal University of Science (today University of Debrecen), graduating in 1940. She rarely commented on her tertiary education, except for stating that she considered it to have been ‘conservative’ and ‘old-fashioned’, and that she received little support to develop as a writer. She wrote her thesis on cosmetic practices in ancient Rome. She referred to this as a doctoral dissertation, but literary historian Endre Bakó claims not to have found documentation of Szabó pursuing a doctorate.

Multiple books by Szabó are autofictional (Ókut/‘The Ancient Well’, 1970; Régimódi történet/‘Old-Fashioned Story’, 1977; Für Elise, 2002). Their (unacknowledged) fictional elements, which are incompatible with each other, make details of Szabó’s personal life, childhood, and family relationships difficult to ascertain. In 1949 she was awarded the Baumgarten Prize, which was immediately withdrawn when Szabó was labelled an enemy to the Communist Party. Since her husband was also censored by the communist regime, she was forced to teach in a Calvinist girls' school until 1959.

She wrote her first novel, Freskó ("Fresco") during these years, and it was published in 1958. In the same year, she published another book of poetry, Bárány Boldizsár (" Balthazar the Lamb"), and a novel for younger female readers, Mondják meg Zsófikának (translated into English as "Tell Sophie ..."). Tündér Lala ("Lara the Fairy"), her 1965 novel, is one of the most popular novels for children written in Hungarian.

Lucy Jeffery discusses how Szabó’s descriptions of the domestic in Iza's Ballad, Katalin Street, and The Door convey the impact of Hungary's troubled political history on the concept of the home/homeland. Jeffery suggests that 'as Szabó interweaves politics, creativity, and the domestic, her novels become politically motivated acts of breaking an enforced silence.' In their discussion of Szabó's well-known novel Abigél, Lucy Jeffery and Anna Váradi highlight the importance of the identity of the Hungarian nation to Szabó, arguing that it is one of the novelist’s prevailing themes. Jeffery and Váradi conclude their article by remarking that 'In Abigél, Szabó demonstrates that in the wake of Trianon, negotiations between the distinctiveness of Hungarian cultural identity on the one hand and a uniform, systematised global space on the other produce divisive and inconclusive results that lead to a split definition of Hungary as Nagymagyarország and Hungary as Magyarország.'

Death She died in her home in Debrecen while reading.

Selected bibliography

Mondják meg Zsófikának (1958). Tell Sally..., trans. Ursula McLean (Corvina Press, 1963). Az őz (1959). The Fawn, trans. Kathleen Szasz (J. Cape, 1963; Knopf, 1963); later by Len Rix (New York Review Books, 2023). Disznótor (1960). Night of the Pig-Killing, trans. Kathleen Szasz (J. Cape, 1965; Knopf, 1966). Pilátus (1963). Iza's Ballad, trans. George Szirtes (Harvill Secker, 2014; New York Review Books, 2016). Katalin utca (1969). Katalin Street, trans. Agnes Farkas Smith (Kids 4 Kids, 2005); later by Len Rix (New York Review Books, 2017). Abigél (1970). Abigail, trans. Len Rix (New York Review Books, 2020). Az ajtó (1987). The Door, trans. Stefan Draughon (East European Monographs, 1995); later by Len Rix (Harvill Press, 2005; New York Review Books, 2015). 1959, 1972: awarded the József Attila, a top Hungarian literary prize. 2003: a French translation of "The Door" by Chantal Philippe is awarded the Prix Femina étranger, a French literary award, for the best foreign novel Abigél was chosen as the sixth most popular novel in the Hungarian version of Big Read. 2018: 2018 PEN Translation Prize for Katalin Street, translated by Len Rix 2019: Warwick Prize for Women in Translation (short-listed) for Len Rix's translation of Katalin Street 2020: Hyman Wingate Prize for Writing about Jewry, long-listed for Len Rix's translation of Katalin Street 2020: Warwick Prize for Women in Translation (short-listed) for Len Rix's translation of Abigail

Tribute On 5 October 2017, Google celebrated her 100th birthday with a Google Doodle.