Antal Szerb

The monumental work of József Havasréti is a reading career and essayist biography written with great care and fascinating problem sensitivity. Detailed and thoughtful portrait of Antal Szerb. We can learn about Serbian life and working methods, his favorite readings and the problems that concern him, as well as his loves and marriages, everyday financial worries and civic occupation. Havasréti also presents the background and the era, so we get an idea of the literary scene and intellectual environment at that time, as well as the social history of the first half of the century. The hero of the book is both the witty novelist (author of the immortal Traveler and the Moonworld), the passionate literary man (his essays and literary stories are an initiation into the mystery of reading for generations) and the believing Catholic Hungarian citizen in its elemental possibilities and in the wonderful, retaining power of Hungarian culture. József Havasréti was born in 1964 in Pécs. He still lives there today; Lecturer at the Department of Communication and Media Studies, Faculty of Arts, Pécs. Awards: Artisjus Prize 2014 (for Antal Szerb's monograph) Tibor Déry Prize 2014 (for work on the history of literature)