George Mikes
| George Mikes | |
|---|---|
| Born | Mikes György 15 February 1912 Siklós, Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | 30 August 1987 (aged 75) London, England |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | Hungarian |
| Citizenship | British (from 1946) |
| Genre | Humour, journalism |
| Notable works | How to be an Alien |
| Children | Martin (first marriage) Judith (second marriage) |
However he adopted the normal Western word order for his name after settling in England.
George Mikes ['mikeʃ] (15 February 1912, Siklós, Hungary – 30 August 1987, London) was a Hungarian-born British journalist, humorist and writer, best known for his humorous commentaries on various countries.
George Mikes was born in 1912, in Siklos, in the south of Hungary. His father, Alfréd Mikes, was a successful lawyer, a profession in which he wanted his son to follow him. Mikes graduated in Budapest in 1933; he studied law and received his doctorate at Budapest University, but at the same time he became a journalist and started to work for Reggel ("Morning"), a Budapest newspaper. For a short while he was the columnist of Intim Pista for Színházi Élet ("Theatre Life"), another newspaper in Budapest.
In 1938 Mikes became the London correspondent for two Hungarian newspapers, Reggel and 8 Órai Ujság ("8 o'clock News") and he worked for the former until 1940. He had originally been sent to London to cover the Munich Crisis in 1938, and expected to stay for only a couple of weeks, but just one year before the outbreak of World War II he decided not to return to Hungary, and instead remained in England. He worked for the BBC's Hungarian Service from 1939 onwards, interrupted only by his internment as an enemy alien on the Isle of Man in 1940.
Living in exile in England, he broadcast to Hungary for the BBC during World War II, and also collaborated with the Hungarian emigration, and wrote political cabaret for the London Podium, a Hungarian theatre in London at that time. From 1939 he also made documentaries for the BBC Hungarian section, at first as a freelance correspondent and, from 1950, as an employee. He was naturalised as a British citizen in 1946. In 1956 he went back to Hungary to cover the Hungarian Revolution for BBC TV. From 1975 until his death on 30 August 1987 he also worked for the Hungarian section of Radio Free Europe.
He was president of the London branch of PEN, and a member of the Garrick Club.
...
Wikipedia