Zoltán Ambrus
1861–1932
Biography
Zoltán Ambrus (1861–1932) was a Hungarian writer and translator. He was born in Debrecen, a city in eastern Hungary, and died in Budapest. He went to school in Debrecen and then in Budapest, and studied law in the capital. His father died when Ambrus was eighteen, leaving him responsible for his family, so he earned his living by tutoring and by writing theatre criticism and articles for Budapest newspapers and journals.
A year in Paris from 1885, spent among the lecture halls of the Sorbonne and the Collège de France, shaped his taste for French prose. Back in Pest he became a contributor to the literary weekly A Hét, and he wrote a great many short stories. In 1900 he became editor of the review Új Magyar Szemle, and he contributed a few pieces to the modernist journal Nyugat. From 1917 to 1922 he directed the National Theatre in Budapest. He also worked as a translator.
The site holds his Álomvilág: Elbeszélések (Dream World: Stories), a collection of his stories in Hungarian. It is a good way to meet a writer who moved between the Budapest press, the lecture halls of Paris and the new literary journals of the turn of the century. The Wikipedia article listed below gives a fuller account of his career.
This biography was written by a language model. The sources below are where to check it; treat details with care.
Books
Álomvilág: Elbeszélések
by Zoltán Ambrus
Some thirty stories by Zoltán Ambrus, many of them fanciful or ironic: tales set in ancient Nineveh, a lovesick gladiator, Casanova, and a medieval warlord let loose in a modern gasworks, alongside sketches of turn-of-the-century Budapest life.
Summary written by Claude Opus 5.5.