Magda Szabo

Magda Szabo (1917-2007)

Magda Szabó - remember, sz in Hungarian sounds like s - was one of the most prominent Hungarian novelists of her time; she also wrote poetry, plays, essays, memoirs, short stories, children's literature, and scholarly studies. She was born in Debrecen, fairly close to the border with Romania, and her father (an academic) taught her English and Latin. She graduated from the University of Debrecen after studying languages and worked for several years as a teacher of Latin and Hungarian. The success of her first publications after World War II soon led to trouble with the censors and the literary establishment, but eventually she won some of the most prestigious prizes in Hungary. (When the narrator is called to travel to Greece, it is no surprise to her knowledgeable reader). Her husband, Tibor Szobotka, was a translator and died in 1982. Szabó died in her home town in 2007 - by then a Doctor of Philology. Her novels won a bunch of literary prizes, and so did some of their translations.

Hungarians will tell you that their poetry is the best in the world - it's a highly refined tradition, and on the other hand in a language unlike all those that surround it (though it has common features with Turkic languages, and with Finno-Ugric languages like Finnish or Estonian, it is surrounded by Indo-European languages), so not many non-Hungarians know the language and are in a position to judge. Szabó began her writing career as a poet with books in 1947 and 1949, but then was labeled an enemy of the Communist Party, fired from her job in the Ministry of Religion and Education, and hired to teach in a Calvinist girls' school. (Omitting the story of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising here, but it's worth doing some quick research.) Her first novel was published in 1958, and she eventually wrote YA novels, plays and autobiographical works. You can imagine how unsuited she would have been to writing socialist realism. But let me know if you'd like more info on socialist realism; Katerina Clark's classic study, The Societ Novel, History as Ritual, gives a detailed and useful examination - but not of Hungarian works.

Our version is translated from the Hungarian by Len Rix.

Questions for Reading:

• What do you know about Hungarian history? What does the book suggest to you about that history, and what does it seem to assume you already know?
• How do issues of gender and class play out in the novel?
• What does the title suggest as you begin the novel? How has its meaning grown richer when you finish reading?
• How does your opinion of Emerence change as more information about her life emerges?
• Ditto for your opinion of our narrator.

Other works by Szabó, some translated quite promptly into English:

• Bárány, 1947 (The Lamb, poetry)
• Vissza az emberig, 1947 (Return to Man, poetry)
• Mondják meg Zsófikának (1958). Tell Sally..., translated by Ursula McLean (Corvina Press, 1963).
• Az őz (1959). The Fawn, translated by Kathleen Szasz (J. Cape, 1963; Knopf, 1963); later by Len Rix (New York Review Books, 2023).
• Disznótor (1960). Night of the Pig-Killing, trans. Kathleen Szasz (J. Cape, 1965; Knopf, 1966).
• Pilátus (1963). Iza's Ballad, translated by George Szirtes (Harvill Secker, 2014; New York Review Books, 2016). Note that George Szirtes is also a really good poet
• Katalin utca (1969). Katalin Street, trans. Agnes Farkas Smith (Kids 4 Kids, 2005); later by Len Rix (New York Review Books, 2017).
• Abigél (1970). Abigail, trans. Len Rix (New York Review Books, 2020).
• Az ajtó (1987). The Door, trans. Stefan Draughon (East European Monographs, 1995); later by Len Rix (Harvill Press, 2005; New York Review Books, 2015).[10]
• Ókút, 1970 (The Ancient Well)
• Régimódi történet, 1971 (An Old-Fashioned Tale)

The Door (Az ajtó) was first published in 1987. The film version directed by István Szabó (2012) and starring Helen Mirren (!) as the servant-not-servant Emerence got rather mixed reviews - consider comparing the film and novel for a pepr. (Apparently István Szabó is no relation of Magda Szabó.) The novel's topic, the relationship of educated upper-class employers with a lower-class servant, recalls a great earlier Hungarian novel, Anna Édes (1926), by Deszö Kosztolányi, which might also make an interesting comparison.
There's a recent article by Szidonia Haragos that discusses the difference between the film treatment and the novel here.