The 100 Most Beautiful Hungarian Poems In English

Corvina Publishing House originally gained its reputation, going well beyond the boundaries of this country, as a publisher specialising in the fine arts. Besides multi-lingual editions of art books (such as Jenő Barcsay's extremely popular Anatomy for the Artist) and publications aimed at tourists visiting this country, the company has made it a mission from the very outset to convey Hungarian literature to foreigners by publishing translations of classic and modern authors. 

Corvina published Géza Gárdonyi’s all-time favourite, The Waning of the Crescent Moon in German, Ferenc Molnár’s The Paul Street Boys in English, selected poems by Sándor Petőfi in German, as well as his epic, John the Valiant in bilingual English–Hungarian and German–Hungarian editions, complete with illustrations.

We asked László Kúnos, director of the publishing house, about the odds they had to reckon with when publishing Hungarian literature in translation.

“Some time around the political transition, the approach to publishing Hungarian books in foreign languages was entirely revised. My point of departure is that the translations need to be published where the readers are – in other words in France, England or Germany rather than in this country. Before ’89 this posed a problem. In the 1990’s, however, Hungarian literature was suddenly discovered by ‘real’ publishing houses and ‘real’ translators, and at long last it began a life of its own on the international scene. If we publish translations of Hungarian works in this country, we simply cannot guarantee that they will find their way to the reader.

Corvina still publishes classics from Mikszáth through Móricz all the way to Krúdy, primarily in English, but these books are sold inside Hungary, to the small market which exists in this country. The circulation relies on foreign-language bookshops, large bookstores and the internet. These publications have to pay for themselves as they are not subsidised.

A list of translated works of Hungarian literature available in Corvina editions:
Elek Benedek–Gyula Illyés: The Tree that Reached the Sky (Az égigérő fa)
Géza Csáth: Opium (Ópium)
Tibor Cseres: Cold Days (Hideg napok)
Géza Gárdonyi: The Slaves of the Huns (A láthatatlan ember)
Árpád Göncz: Mid-Stream (Sodrásban)
Mór Jókai: The Man with the Golden Touch (Aranyember)

Margit Kaffka: Colours and Years (Színek és évek)
Gyula Krúdy: Ladies’ Day (Asszonyságok díja)
Imre Madách: The Tragedy of Man (Az ember tragédiája)
Iván Mándy: Fabulya' s Wives and Other Stories (Válogatott elbeszélések)
Sándor Márai: Memoir of Hungary 1944–1948 (Föld, föld!...)
Kálmán Mikszáth: St. Peter's Umbrella (Szent Péter esernyője)
Kálmán Mikszáth: The Noszty Boy’s Affair with Mari Tóth (A Noszty fiú esete Tóth Marival)
Ferenc Molnár: The Paul Street Boys (Pál utcai fiúk)
Géza Ottlik: Buda

István Örkény: The Flower Show – The Tot Family (Rózsakiállítás – Tóték)
István Örkény: More One Minute Stories (Újabb egypercesek)
Alaine Polcz: A Wartime Memoir. Hungary 1944-1945 (Asszony a fronton)
Jenő Rejtő: The Blonde Hurricane (A szőke ciklon)
Jenő Rejtő: Quarantine in the Grand Hotel (Vesztegzár a Grand Hotelban)
Ernő Szép: The Smell of Humans (Emberszag) 

István Bart (ed.): The Kiss – A re-edition of a selection from the works of the best known 20th-century writers of short prose. The volume offers one short story each from almost thirty authors such as Zsigmond Móricz, Sándor Bródy, Gyula Krúdy, Dezső Kosztolányi, Tibor Déry, István Örkény, Iván Mándy, Ferenc Karinthy, Miklós Mészöly, Endre Fejes, Ferenc Sánta, Erzsébet Galgóczi, István Csurka, Péter Nádas, György Spiró, Lajos Grendel, Mihály Kornis and Péter Esterházy."

More from the source: Hungarian Literature Online