Rereading the Transmutations of Miksa Fenyő’s 1944-1945 Diary, Az elsodort ország [‘A Nation Adrift’]

Authors

  • Maya J. Lo Bello

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/ahea.2021.436

Keywords:

Holocaust narrative, life writing, Nyugat, GyOSz, translation, emigration

Abstract

This review article examines the 2018 publication by Helena History Press of A Nation Adrift [‘Az elsodort ország’]: The 1944-1945 Wartime Diaries of Miksa Fenyő. Translated by Miksa Fenyő’s son, Mario D. Fenyő, this work gains new layers of meaning when alternately read as a Holocaust narrative, a family history, an example of life writing and the continuation of intellectual activity in the face of great adversity. Only recently available to an English-speaking audience, Az elsodort ország provides a remarkably comprehensive, well-composed description of the Hungarian Holocaust, World War II and the Siege of Budapest, as related by Miksa Fenyő (1877-1972), the former editor and critic of the modern literary journal, Nyugat [‘West’] and deputy director of GyOSz [Gyáriparosok Országos Szövetsége; ‘Association of Hungarian Industrialists’].     

Downloads

Published

2021-07-16

Issue

Section

Review Articles