Mihály Babits

Mihály Babits
Born November 26, 1883 in Szekszárd
Died August 4, 1941 in Budapest​

• ​Poet, essayist, critic, aesthetician, translator
• In 1921, he married Ilona Tanner. She published her own poetry, fiction, and studies under the name Sophie Török.
• In 1940, he was awarded the San Remo Prize by the Italian government for his translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy.
• Also in 1940, he was named member of Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
• He is considered among the most important contributors to development of 20th Century Hungarian literature.
• His body of work is mostly noted for his lyric poems.
• ​He translated many works from English, French, German, Greek, Italian, and Latin
• He translated Edgar Allan Poe extensively (buy his translation of “The Raven – A holló“)
• He popularized the discursive essay.
• He exerted considerable influence on the literature emerging in 1930s.
• A Gólyakalifa and Kártyavár has both been translated into German and Italian.
• Timár Virgil fia has been translated into French, German, and Italian
• Az európai irodalom története has been translated into German.
• Halálfiai has been translated into Italian
• Hatholdas rózsakert has been translated into Italian and Serbian
• Some of his poems and short stories into Bulgarian, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovakian, Spanish, and Swedish

source: Hungarian Authors: A Bibliographical Handbook by Albert Tezla