Editing Antal Szerb (section)

==Life and career==
Szerb was born in 1901 to assimilated [[Jew]]ish parents in Budapest, but [[baptism|baptized]] [[Catholic]]. He studied [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]], German and later English, obtaining a [[doctorate]] in 1924. From 1924 to 1929 he lived in France and Italy, also spending a year in [[London]], England, from 1929 to 1930.

As a student, he published essays on [[Georg Trakl]] and [[Stefan George]], and quickly established a formidable reputation as a scholar, writing erudite studies of [[William Blake]] and [[Henrik Ibsen]] among other works. Elected President of the Hungarian Literary Academy in 1933, aged just 32, he published his first novel, ''[[The Pendragon Legend]]'' (which draws upon his personal experience of living in Britain) the following year. His second and best-known work, {{lang|hu|[[Utas és holdvilág]]}} (''Journey by Moonlight'') came out in 1937. He was made a [[Professor]] of [[Literature]] at the [[University of Szeged]] the same year. He was twice awarded the ''[[Baumgarten Prize]]'', in 1935 and 1937. Szerb also translated books from English, French, and Italian, including works by [[Anatole France]], [[P. G. Wodehouse]], and [[Hugh Walpole]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Tezla |first=Albert |title=Hungarian Authors: A Bibliographical Handbook |publisher=The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |year=1970}}</ref>

In 1941 he published a ''History of World Literature'' which continues to be authoritative today. He also published a volume on the theory of the novel and a book about the history of Hungarian literature. Given numerous chances to escape anti-Semitic persecution (as late as 1944), he chose to remain in Hungary, where his last novel, a Pirandellian fantasy about a king staging a coup against himself, then having to impersonate himself, ''[[Oliver VII]]'', was published in 1942. It was passed off as a translation from the English, as no 'Jewish' work could be printed at the time.

During the 1940s, Szerb faced increasing hostility due to his Jewish background. In 1943, Szerb's ''History of World Literature'' was put on a list of forbidden works. During the period of Communist rule, it would also be censored, with the chapter on Soviet literature redacted, and the full version would only be available again in 1990. Szerb was deported to a [[concentration camp]] in Balf late in 1944. Admirers of his attempted to save him with falsified papers, but Szerb turned them down, wanting to share the fate of his generation.<ref>{{cite news|last=Dalos|first=György|date=January 22, 2004|title=Der romantische Aussteiger|language=de|work=Die Zeit|url=https://www.zeit.de/2004/05/L-Szerb|access-date=2020-01-18|archive-url=https://archive.today/20210828162210/https://www.zeit.de/2004/05/L-Szerb/komplettansicht|archive-date=2021-08-28|url-status=live}}</ref> He was beaten to death there in January 1945, at the age of 43. He was survived by his wife, Klára Bálint, who died in 1992.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nyrb.com/collections/antal-szerb|title=Antal Szerb|access-date=2015-11-23|website=[[New York Review Books]]}}</ref>