Fraternity-Testvériség, 1964 (42. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1964-06-01 / 6. szám
FRATERNITY 27 HUNGARIAN WRITERS AND LITERATURE MODERN NOVELISTS, CRITICS AND POETS by Joseph Reményi Edited and with an Introduction by August J. Molnár This is the first book-length survey of Hungarian literature to appear in the English language since 1906. Its author, Joseph Reményi, has been one of the best of the voices raised in the United States on behalf of Hungarian literature. For more than thirty years, until his death in 1956, he served as literary spokesman for the relatively new community of Hungarian-Americans, and he bridged the gap between Central European and American cultures. Since Reményi wrote in both languages, and his work was published in both countries, he not only presented Hungarian authors and literature to the United States, but introduced the developments in American and English literature to his native land. In his fiction, poetry and essays, he built an entirely new literature, the language Hungarian, but the subject rooted in the United States. When Reményi came to the United States in 1914, at the age of twenty-one, he had already published two books of fiction, and he had worked in Germany, Switzerland and France, reporting and writing stories in Hungarian for various newspapers and periodicals. Shortly after his arrival in this country, he went to Cleveland, where he joined the editorial staff of the Hungarian daily Szabadság. In 1927 he became associated with Western Reserve University, became Professor of Comparative Literature, and remained there, serving with distinction, for the balance of his life. This book presents a selection of Reményi’s most discerning articles about modern Hungarian writers and literature, which appeared in American, British, French and Italian scholarly journals over a period of years. Professor August J. Molnár, Lecturer in Hungarian Studies at Rutgers, The State University, has consulted thirty scholars in Hungarian literature in the United States and Great Britain in making the choice. Professor Molnár has assembled a bibliography which includes listings of translated Hungarian prose and verse in English, French, German, Italian and other languages; Hungarian bibliographies, encyclopedias, grammars, handbooks, and historical and linguistic works in Hungarian; books of Hungarian literary history and criticism; and a roster of the American universities and libraries that maintain significant Hungarian collections.
