István Szilágyi (writer)

István Szilágyi (10 October 1938 – 13 March 2024) was a Hungarian writer from Transylvania, Kossuth Prize winner and Attila József Prize winner, who was awarded the title of Artist of the Nation. Szilágyi was member of the Literary Section of the Hungarian Academy of Arts.

Biography

István Szilágyi was born in Cluj-Napoca. He graduated from high school in 1956 in Satu Mare, and learned the trade of locomotive mechanic. From 1958 he studied at the Faculty of Law at the Bolyai University, graduating in 1963. He worked for Utunk and was deputy editor-in-chief from 1968 to 1989. Since 1990 he has been editor-in-chief of Helikon. He lived and worked in Cluj-Napoca.

He wrote novels, novellas and short stories. His first major literary success came with the novel Stones Falling Down a Dry Well, published in 1975, a work that won him recognition from the entire Hungarian-language literary scene. In the years that followed, it was translated into several languages: first into German in 1982, then into Romanian in 1984, followed by Polish in 2001. The novel is a psychological reappraisal of the tragic story of Ilka Szendy and Dénes Gönczi. More than just a psychological thriller, Szilágyi wrote this novel in the style of János Arany's ballads.

He also attracted much attention in 1990 with his monumental, almost 700-page novel, Antler Thicket, an absurd vision, open to both myth and ironically depicted incomprehensible reality. But it was his more recent novel, Time of Ravens (2001), that provoked a similar success to that of the 1970s. This novel is set during the Turkish occupation and depicts the everyday life, loves, war adventures and horrors of a remote era.

István Szilágyi died in his hometown in 2024, at the age of 86.

Works

• Sorskovács (1964; short stories)
• Ezen a csillagon (1966; short stories)
• Üllő, dobszó, harang (1969; novel)
• Jámbor vadak (1971; short stories)
• Kő hull apadó kútba (1975; novel)
• "Kő hull apadó kútba." In: Letűnt világok – Két egyfelvonásos (1981; two one-act plays)
• Agancsbozót (1990; novel)
• Hollóidő (2001; novel)
• Bolygó tüzek – Novellák, elbeszélések (2009; novella)
• Katlanváros (2019)
• Messze túl a láthatáron (2020)
• A hóhér könnyei (2021)
• Fekete Vince: Szilágyi István – Képes beszélgetőkönyv (2022)
• Távolodó jégtáblákon. Válogatott publicisztikák (2023; edited by Márkus Béla)

References

• Béla, Mester (2004). Hatalom, ember, technika Szilágyi István prózájában. Budapest: Kijárat.