Kandor, Cobra, Calligaro
György Konrád’s autobiographies
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
As a child, György Konrád only just managed to escape the Holocaust. After the war, he experienced the establishment of communist rule in Hungary, the suppression of the 1956 uprising and goulash socialism. During the 1980s, he began to travel extensively in the West, where he gave lectures. However, he consistently refused to emigrate from Hungary. Twice, his literary achievements were honoured with his election as President of the German Academy of Arts. In his books and essays, Konrád was able to draw on his own experience of the brown and red dictatorships. Here, his own biography served as a heuristic tool for alternative ways of living, with which he experimented through the medium of his novels.
(Osteuropa 12/2019, pp. 91–110)