Frigyes Karinthy

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The native form of this personal name is Karinthy Frigyes. This article uses the Western name order.

Frigyes Karinthy (June 25, 1887 in Budapest - August 29, 1938 in Siófok) was a Hungarian author, playwright, poet, journalist and translator. He was the first proponent of the six degrees of separation concept, in his 1929 short story, Láncszemek (Chains). Karinthy remains one of the most popular Hungarian writers. He was the father of writer Ferenc Karinthy.

Karinthy is perhaps best known in English for two remarkable novellas that continue the adventures of Swift's character Gulliver. Voyage to Faremido is an early examination of artificial intelligence, while Capillaria is a polished and darkly humorous satire on the 'battle of the sexes'.

[edit] Life and work

Karinthy was born into a bourgeois family in Budapest. He started his writing career as a journalist and remained a writer of short, humorous blurbs until his death. He rose to instant fame in 1912 with the publication of his literary parodies called Így írtok ti (That's the Way You Write). He expanded the collection continuously during the following years. Among his early works, his collection of short stories from school life, Tanár úr, kérem (Please, Mr. Teacher) also stands out for its grasp of the trials and tribulations of the average schoolboy. Another popular highlight is his translation of A. A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh, that made it a cult book also in Hungary.

After the First World War, his writing became more serious and engaged, though never leaving a satirical bent. Karinthy cited Jonathan Swift as a major influence: from this arose the novel Utazás Faremidóba and its sequel, Capillaria. Many of his novels and stories also deal with the difficulties of relationships between men and women, partly due to his unhappy second marriage.

Karinthy was operated with a tumor in the brain in Stockholm in 1936. He describes this experience in his autobiographical novel, Utazás a koponyám körül (Voyage Around my Cranium). He died a few months afterwards during a holiday at Lake Balaton.

[edit] Private life

Karinthy was married two times. He got married with the actress Etel Judik in 1913. The marriage was serene and happy and they had a son called Gábor. Tragically, Etel died very young during the Spanish flu epidemy in 1919. In 1920, he married the Jewish psychiatrist Aranka Böhm, with whom he had another son, the writer Ferenc Karinthy. This second marriage proved far less happy than the first one, as Aranka turned out to be promiscuous, flamboyant and psychologically unstable, inspiring much of Karinthy's writing on men and women.