Zsigmond Móricz (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈʒiɡmond ˈmoːrits], June 29, 1879, Tiszacsécse — September 4, 1942) was a major Hungarian novelist and Social Realist. He was among the earliest significant literary figures writing in Hungarian.
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Zsigmond Móricz was born in Tiszacsécse in 1879 to Bálint Móricz and Erzsébet Pallagi. On his mother's side he came from an impoverished but ancient noble family while his father was the descendant of serfs.[1] He studied at Debreceni Református Kollégium (1891-1893), Sárospataki Kollégium (1894-1896), and in Kisújszállás (1896-1898). In 1899, he enrolled at Debreceni Református Kollégium to study theology, but transferred into law after only six months.
In 1903, he began to work as a journalist at the newspaper Az Újság, remaining there until 1909.
During the revolutionary government after World War I, he was vice president of the Vörösmarty Academy. After its fall, his plays were not performed in the National Theater, and his work was published only in Nyugat and Az Est. At the end of 1929 he became the prose editor for Nyugat.
In 1905 Moricz married Eugénia Holics. Suffering from depression, she committed suicide in 1925.
He married for a second time in 1926 to Mária Simonyi.
His novels expressed the lives of the Hungarian peasantry and dealt with issues of poverty.