Ágnes Gergely Explained

Agnes Gergely
Native Name:Gergely Ágnes
Native Name Lang:hu
Pseudonym:Gergely Ágnes
Birth Name:Guttmann Ágnes
Birth Date:5 October 1933
Birth Place:Endrőd, Hungary
Education:University of Budapest
Genre:Poetry, prose, essay, translation

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

Biography

She was born Ágnes Guttmann in family of Fenákel Rózsika and György Guttmann[1] in Endrőd, a village on the Great Hungarian Plain.[2] 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.[3]

Her father György Guttmann was murdered in the Holocaust.[4]

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.[2] 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.

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.[5]

Gergely was awarded the Attila József Prize in 1977 and 1987 and the Kossuth Prize in 2000.[4] [6]

Notes and References

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