Frigyes Karinthy
Frigyes Karinthy was a prominent Hungarian writer and satirist born on June 25, 1887, in Budapest. The fifth of six children, he grew up in a family that valued education, although he faced early loss when his mother passed away. Encouraged by his father's support for his artistic interests, Karinthy began writing as a teenager, with his first work published in 1902. Over the years, he evolved from imitating literary styles to creating parodies, notably contributing to the comic magazine Fidibusz. His literary repertoire includes a series of allegorical tales and novels that critique societal norms and human folly, with works such as "Voyage to Faremido" and "A Journey Round My Skull," the latter reflecting on his personal health struggles. Karinthy's influence extended beyond his own writing, as he also translated significant English literary works into Hungarian. He married twice, with his second wife, Aranka Bohm, bearing a son who would also become an author. Karinthy passed away in 1938, shortly after a successful operation for a brain tumor, leaving behind a legacy of sharp wit and literary innovation.
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Frigyes Karinthy
Writer
- Born: June 25, 1887
- Birthplace: Budapest, Hungary
- Died: August 29, 1938
- Place of death: Siófok, Hungary
Biography
Frigyes Karinthy was born in Budapest, Hungary, on June 25, 1887, the fifth of six children born into a humble family that prized education. His mother, Karoline Engel Karinthy, died when he was six. His father, Josezf, who held a variety of jobs from soldier to bookseller, encouraged his son’s interest in painting and writing. Karinthy attended secondary school but never finished his college studies at the local technological university. He began writing while a teenager, and his first known work, “Naszutazas a fold kozeppontja fele,” written in imitation of Jules Verne’s A Journey to the Center of the Earth, was published in a newspaper in 1902.
Over the next few years, Karinthy shifted his approach to fiction from homage to parody. Between 1908 and 1911, he wrote a series of pastiches for the comic magazine Fidibusz that satirized the fiction of Oscar Wilde, Emile Zola, Henrik Ibsen, and a number of his Hungarian contemporaries. They were collected in the 1912 volume, Így írtok ti. Through these sketches, Karinthy lampooned the political and cultural life of his country as much as the authors whose styles he parodied. In 1913, Karinthy married Etel Judik. That same year saw the publication of Találkozás egy fiatalemberrel, a doppelganger fantasy in which a jaded writer must contend with the coexistence of his younger and more idealistic self. At this time Karinthy also began to write allegorical tales of the artist’s life in society, some of which were collected in Két hajó (1915).
His novel, Utazás Faremidóba (1916; Voyage to Faremido, 1965), was a sequel to Jonathan Swift’s book, Gulliver’s Travels. The story was a caustic appraisal of human folly, set in a future after World War I in which machines have rendered humanity obsolete. The next few years saw several more collections of parodies and short fiction, including Tanár úr kérem (1916), and Így láttátok ti. In 1920, he married Aranka Bohm, with whom he had a son, Ferenc, who would become a well-known writer. The following year he published Cappillária, another Gulliver sequel that tackled the battle of the sexes. His last novel, Utazás a koponyám körül (1937; A Journey Round My Skull, 1939) was a semiautobiographical work based on his treatment for a brain tumor. He was operated on successfully in 1937, but died the year after from related complications. Before his death, he and his older sister, Emilia, completed translations of a number of works of English literature into Hungarian, including Gulliver’s Travels and A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh.