Zoltán Szabó

‘This monograph presents an exceptional and highly influential writer and a man active in public life, for whom not only what he wrote was important, but also the way he wrote it. And Zoltán Szabó (1912–1984) wrote about many things various manner, differently when he wrote the sociography A tardi helyzet (The Situation of the Village Tard), differently when he published Cifra nyomorúság (Fancy Misery) in the series Magyarország felfedezése (Discovering Hungary), and again differently when he published the lyrical prose, probably his most beautiful book Szerelmes földrajz (Lovely Geography)… And again differently when he wrote essays about Rákóczi, Zrínyi, Péter Veres, László Németh, the Sárközi couple, Orwell, László Cs. Szabó, Tamási, Illyés, i.e. ancestors and fellow writers. He worked as a journalist for the series Szellemi Honvédelem (Intellectual National Defense), before and after in Hungary, and then during the decades of his emigration in the Látóhatár / Új Látóhatár (Horizon / New Horizon) in Munich, in the Irodalmi Ujság (Literary Journal) in Paris, and other periodicals. – … this monograph promotes not only the person of Zoltán Szabó, his European Hungarianness and Hungarian Europeanness, as well as his writings, but also the Western Hungarian era that has passed, but – as Zoltán Szabó said, which might seem a cliche for the first reading but as soon as one considers it more deeply, it becomes more striking – the past is what does not pass. I believe Zoltán Szabó, the man and his writings are such a past, and I hope many people can feel, understand and experience this.’ – Sándor András