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István György Örkény (5 April 1912,
István Örkény homepage in English
{{DEFAULTSORT:Orkeny, Istvan 1912 births 1979 deaths 20th-century Hungarian male writers Writers from Budapest Hungarian Jews Jewish Hungarian-language writers Burials at Farkasréti Cemetery Hungarian World War II forced labourers Hungarian prisoners of war World War II prisoners of war held by the Soviet Union World War II civilian prisoners
István György Örkény (5 April 1912, Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
– 24 June 1979, Budapest) was a Hungarian writer whose plays and novels often featured grotesque situations. He was a recipient of the Kossuth Prize
The Kossuth Prize ( hu, Kossuth-díj) is a state-sponsored award in Hungary, named after the Hungarian politician and revolutionist Lajos Kossuth. The Prize was established in 1948 (on occasion of the centenary of the March 15th revolution, the ...
in 1973.
Biography
He was born to a wealthy Jewish family, his father Hugo was the owner of a pharmacy in Budapest. He graduated from the in 1930 and enrolled at theBudapest University of Technology and Economics
The Budapest University of Technology and Economics ( hu, Budapesti Műszaki és Gazdaságtudományi Egyetem or in short ), official abbreviation BME, is the most significant university of technology in Hungary and is considered the world's olde ...
where he studied chemistry. Two years later, he chose to specialize in pharmacology and received his degree in that subject in 1934.
In 1937, he became associated with the journal ' and began traveling; to London and Paris, where he held several odd jobs. He returned to Budapest in 1940 and completed his degree in chemical engineering. He published his first book, ''Ocean Dance'', in 1941. In 1942, he was sent to the Russian Front on the Don River
The Don ( rus, Дон, p=don) is the fifth-longest river in Europe. Flowing from Central Russia to the Sea of Azov in Southern Russia, it is one of Russia's largest rivers and played an important role for traders from the Byzantine Empire.
Its ...
. Due to his Judaism, he was placed in a forced-labor unit. There he was captured and detained in a labour camp
A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...
near Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
, where he wrote the play ''Voronesh''. In 1946, he returned home to Budapest.
After 1949, he worked as a dramaturge
A dramaturge or dramaturg is a literary adviser or editor in a theatre, opera, or film company who researches, selects, adapts, edits, and interprets scripts, libretti, texts, and printed programmes (or helps others with these tasks), consults auth ...
at the Youth Theater and, after 1951, as a playwright at the People's Army Theater. In 1954, he began working as an editor for . He was prohibited from publishing after the Revolution
In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
and worked as a chemical engineer at until 1963.
His most famous work, ''The Toth Family'', is about a man who is driven to the verge of insanity and murders the guest his family was having.
He was married three times. His second wife, was a cookbook writer. They were married from 1948 to 1959. His third wife, was a prize-winning dramaturge. They were married in 1965.
He died of heart failure in 1979 and was buried in Farkasréti Cemetery
Farkasréti Cemetery or Farkasrét Cemetery ( hu, Farkasréti temető) is one of the most famous cemeteries in Budapest. It opened in 1894 and is noted for its extensive views of the city (several people wanted it more to be a resort area than a c ...
. In 2004, the Madách Chamber Theatre in Budapest was renamed the Örkeny Theater in his honour.
Works
* ''Ocean Dance'' * ''Voronezh'' * ''Macskajáték'' (Catsplay) * ''Tóték'' (The Toth Family) * ''One Minute Stories'' (''Válogatott egyperces novellák'')References
Further reading
* Örkény, István. ''One Minute Stories'', selected and translated by Judith Sollosy. Budapest: Corvina, 1995. . * Örkény, István. ''More One Minute Stories'', selected and translated by Judith Sollosy, preface by Péter Esterházy. Budapest: Corvina, 2006. .External links
* http://www.rev.hu/history_of_56/szerviz/kislex/biograf/orkeny.htm * http://www.suhrkamp.de/autoren/autor.cfm?id=3598 * http://www.lyrikwelt.de/rezensionen/minutennovellen-r.htm * Brockhaus Enzyklopädie 1991 Neunzehnte Auflage, Band 16, S. 274István Örkény homepage in English
{{DEFAULTSORT:Orkeny, Istvan 1912 births 1979 deaths 20th-century Hungarian male writers Writers from Budapest Hungarian Jews Jewish Hungarian-language writers Burials at Farkasréti Cemetery Hungarian World War II forced labourers Hungarian prisoners of war World War II prisoners of war held by the Soviet Union World War II civilian prisoners