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Ágnes Gergely

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Agnes Gergely
Ágnes Gergely, Hungarian poet, writer, translator
Ágnes Gergely, Hungarian poet, writer, translator
Native name
Gergely Ágnes
BornGuttmann Ágnes
(1933-10-05) October 5, 1933 (age 91)
Endrőd, Hungary
Pen nameGergely Ágnes
Occupation
  • writer
  • educator
  • journalist
  • translator
EducationUniversity of Budapest
GenrePoetry, prose, essay, translation
Notable works
  • A tolmács (The interpreter, 1973)
  • Ajtófélfámon jel vagy (Sign on my door jamb, 1963)

Ágnes Gergely (born 1933) is a Hungarian writer, educator, journalist and translator.

Biography

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She was born Ágnes Guttmann in family of Fenákel Rózsika and György Guttmann[1] in Endrőd,[2] a village on the Great Hungarian Plain.[3] She took her pen name "Gergely" from the novel Eclipse of the Crescent Moon by the Hungarian writer Géza Gárdonyi because Agnes Gergely wished to be courageous like the hero from the story, Gergely Bornemissza.[4]

Her father György Guttmann was murdered in the Holocaust.[2]

She began work in a factory in 1950 but later went on to study Hungarian and English literature at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Budapest. She taught secondary school, was a radio producer and was feature editor for the weekly literary magazine Nagyvilág.[3] From 1973 to 1974, Gergely took part in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. She also has translated English and American works into Hungarian and has lectured on English literature at Eötvös Loránd University.[5]

In 1963, she published her first poetry collection Ajtófélfámon jel vagy (Sign on my door jamb).

Ágnes Gergely published her first novel A tolmács (The interpreter) in 1973, a story about tragedy of Jewish community during Nazist regime.[6]

Gergely was awarded the Attila József Prize in 1977 and 1987 and the Kossuth Prize in 2000.[2][5]

References

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  1. ^ "Gergely Ágnes Hajtogatós" (in Hungarian). Retrieved 2018-07-20. Ágnes szülei: Fenákel Rózsika és Guttmann György (Ágnes's parents: Fenákel Rózsika and György Guttmann)
  2. ^ a b c Suleiman, Susan Rubin; Forgács, Éva (2003). Contemporary Jewish Writing in Hungary: An Anthology. U of Nebraska Press. p. 195. ISBN 0803242751.
  3. ^ a b Wilson, Katharina M (1991). An Encyclopedia of Continental Women Writers. Vol. 1. Taylor & Francis. p. 454. ISBN 0824085477.
  4. ^ "REMÉLEM, ODAÁT NAGYON ERŐS A SZERETET – GERGELY ÁGNES KÖLTŐVEL, REGÉNYÍRÓVAL VÁRNAI PÁL BESZÉLGET". Szombat (in Hungarian). 2003-10-01. Retrieved 2018-07-20. A nevem Guttmann volt (My name was Guttmann)...
  5. ^ a b Publications, Europa Europa (2004). International Who's Who in Poetry 2005. Taylor & Francis. p. 579. ISBN 185743269X.
  6. ^ Gyáni, Gábor (Jul 12, 2020). A Nation Divided by History and Memory: Hungary in the Twentieth Century and Beyond. Routledge. ISBN 9781000090758.