Zsigmond Móricz
1879–1942
Biography
Zsigmond Móricz (1879–1942) was a Hungarian novelist, short-story writer and editor, and one of the central figures of realist prose in the early twentieth century. He was born in Tiszacsécse, a village on the Hungarian plain, and he grew up close to the rural life that would fill much of his work. He later lived and worked in Budapest, where he died in 1942.
Móricz wrote about peasants, the rural poor, small-town officials and the gentry, and he refused to make their lives picturesque. He was interested in how poverty, pride and an unequal social order limit the choices people can make, and he wrote in a plain, observant prose. Hungarian critics count him among the leading realist writers of his century.
On this site he is represented by Légy jó mindhalálig (1920). Its narrator is a schoolboy, Nyilas Misi, at a Reformed college in Debrecen, and the book has often been read as a children's story. Móricz did not mean it that way: he wanted the boy to stand for a goodness that is hurt, misunderstood and tormented, so the schoolboy viewpoint should not lead a reader to dismiss the book as small or merely childish.
This biography was written by a language model. The sources below are where to check it; treat details with care.
Books
Légy jó mindhalálig
by Zsigmond Móricz
Misi Nyilas, a poor twelve-year-old at the old Reformed College in Debrecen, tries to live up to the school's strict code of honour. When he becomes tangled up in the business of a lost lottery ticket, the adult world turns out to be far less honest than the one he believes in.…
Summary written by Claude Opus 5.5.