Frigyes Karinthy
1887–1938
Biography
Frigyes Karinthy (1887–1938) was a Hungarian writer who worked as a journalist, humorist, poet, playwright and translator. He was born in Budapest and died at Siófok, on Lake Balaton, in 1938. Most of his career was spent writing short pieces for the press, and his wit made him one of the most popular Hungarian writers of his own day and since. He was also active in the Esperanto movement.
His early fame came from parody. In 1912 he published Így írtok ti (Here's How You Write), a set of mocking imitations of the styles of his fellow writers, and he kept adding to it in the years that followed. From the First World War onward his writing became more serious, though it never lost its satirical edge. Jonathan Swift was a major influence on him, and his two science fiction novellas, Voyage to Faremido (1916) and Capillaria (1921), take Gulliver's travels in new directions.
In 1929 he published the short story Láncszemek (Chains), in which he suggested that any two people on Earth are linked by a short chain of acquaintances. That idea later became known as six degrees of separation. In 1936 he underwent an operation for a brain tumour in Stockholm, and he wrote about the experience in Utazás a koponyám körül (Journey Round My Skull), which appeared in 1939, a year after his death.
This site lists Esik a hó (It Is Snowing), a collection of his short stories, under his name. It offers a way into the shorter prose that he went on writing, alongside his parodies and novels, until the end of his life.
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Books
Esik a hó: Novellák
by Frigyes Karinthy
Fifteen early stories by Frigyes Karinthy, better known for his parodies: lyrical and wry pieces about love, art and city life, from a bunch of flowers to a merry-go-round and a pilot.
Summary written by Claude Opus 5.5.