How to Study Hungarian Writers

Learning about Hungarian writers shows us a bit of the Hungarian "soul" as writers chronicle common experiences and write about the environment of Eastern Europe. These steps will get you started on finding all about them.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Find specific data. Pick out a time period such as 20th century, Renaissance or Baroque periods. Pick a certain type of writer. Choose from poets to novelists to journalists. You can also study specific writers. Separate them into groups for further study.

2. Separate the work of Hungarian writers by language. Ancient Hungarian writing was in the Magyar language and then Latin took over. The modern Hungarian language emerges in the 19th century.

3. Look at the last two centuries. Hungarian writing went through many changes in the 19th and 20th centuries. Writers from the Soviet era, for example, could be put in a different group from writers of the pre-Soviet era. Finding high-profile writers will help characterize different eras of Hungarian writing. Most recently, the Hungarian writer Imre Kertesz won the Nobel Prize in 2002 for writing about the Holocaust.

Tips & Warnings

• Learn a little Hungarian. The language will definitely come in handy, providing clues into the work of the writers you want to study.