Poll: Have you ever read any literature by a Hungarian author?
Лице кое објавува дискусија: ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
ПЕРСОНАЛ НА СТРАНИЦАТА
Oct 21, 2025

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Have you ever read any literature by a Hungarian author?".

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Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Португалија
Local time: 20:43
Член (2007)
англиски на португалски
+ ...
Other Oct 21, 2025

I'm not sure as I don't choose the authors I read based on their nationality. I read them because I read a review, because they were recommended to me, because they were given to me, because the cover caught my eye, or for some other reason. I think I read years ago something by Magda Szabo (she is Hungarian isn’t she?), but I can't remember exactly what.

Peter Simon
Liena V.
Angie Garbarino
 
Ines Radionovas-Lagoutte, PhD
Ines Radionovas-Lagoutte, PhD  Identity Verified
Германија
Local time: 21:43
Член (2008)
англиски на германски
+ ...
Not really? Oct 21, 2025

What kind of option is "No, not really"?
I once pretended to, but not really?


Arabic & More
 
P.L.F. Persi (X)
P.L.F. Persi (X)  Identity Verified
Холандија
Local time: 21:43
англиски на италијански
+ ...
Yes, several Oct 21, 2025

I studied Hungarian at Uni, so I read quite a lot of different authors, mostly from the 19th and 20th centuries. Poetry written in Hungarian sounds like a melody. And those who studied Literature, have most probably read Lukács's The Theory of the Novel.

Unfortunately, I forgot virtually all of my hard learned lessons, and I think I'm going to read the current Nobel Prize laureate László Krasznahorkai in translation.


 
Tom in London
Tom in London
Обединето Кралство
Local time: 20:43
италијански на англиски
Hungarian literature Oct 21, 2025

A recent conversation with someone who has a Hungarian connection, and my friends Stephen Kapos and Agnes Kory, have finally got me turning to Hungarian literature as well as Hungarian history and Hungarian music

Embers (not the original title; I wish publishers wouldn't try to popularise a book by giving it wht they think is a catchy title) by Sándor Márai ; translated by Carol Brown Janeway.

But was Carol Brown Janeway any good? Do we know? She seems to have been
... See more
A recent conversation with someone who has a Hungarian connection, and my friends Stephen Kapos and Agnes Kory, have finally got me turning to Hungarian literature as well as Hungarian history and Hungarian music

Embers (not the original title; I wish publishers wouldn't try to popularise a book by giving it wht they think is a catchy title) by Sándor Márai ; translated by Carol Brown Janeway.

But was Carol Brown Janeway any good? Do we know? She seems to have been very part of the New York literary/publishing scene. I suspect she probably invented that title herself. But "Candles burn until the end" (A gyertyák csonkig égnek) was surely better?
.
She is praised here https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/sep/04/fame-daniel-kehlman-fiction-review

--but since I do not speak Hungarian I'll have to go with what I've got.
Collapse


Simon Turner
 
Peter Simon
Peter Simon  Identity Verified
Холандија
Local time: 21:43
англиски на унгарски
+ ...
Yes Oct 21, 2025

Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida wrote:

I think I read years ago something by Magda Szabo (she is Hungarian isn’t she?), but I can't remember exactly what.


Yes, she was Hungarian.

Otherwise, I read hundreds of HU books in Hungarian as it's my mother tongue, but I practically stopped a decade or two ago, and anyway, I've been reading more everything I find interesting and good in EN for over four decades, and for a long while exclusively. Older HU literature was, to my mind, a lot better than from the 1950s, or at least I don't like new HU lit., especially the previous Nobel winner who was even talked down my literature teacher colleagues. I haven't read Szabó Magda or Krasznahorkay but the latter sounds very worthwhile based on what I've read about him lately. And thanks, HU poetry is really top class, but difficult to translate or appreciate in Tr., sadly. But if sb. tries, he/she could find real treasures.

[Edited at 2025-10-21 14:07 GMT]


P.L.F. Persi (X)
 
Arabic & More
Arabic & More  Identity Verified
Јордан
арапски на англиски
+ ...
. Oct 22, 2025

Ines Radionovas-Lagoutte, PhD wrote:

What kind of option is "No, not really"?
I once pretended to, but not really?


The strange thing is that most people selected this as their answer.

In addition, there is no "No" option.


Maria Laura Curzi
Ines Radionovas-Lagoutte, PhD
expressisverbis
 


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Poll: Have you ever read any literature by a Hungarian author?






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