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HungarY | 205 tibor déry (1894–1977) Déry is known in the Anglophone world primarily as the author of the immensely popular novel Niki: Egy kutja története (Niki: The Story of a Dog, 1956)— which is still in print in English—about a couple’s love for a stray dog set in the context of the bleak Stalinist period of the Mátyás Rákosi regime. One of the most respected names in modern Hungarian literature, Déry had a long and productive career as a writer and a long involvement in his country’s political life. An early member of the Communist Party, he served briefly in Béla Kun’s short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic (1919) before a falling out with Kun forced him into exile. Until 1935, he lived mostly in France, Austria, and Germany, after briefer residences on the Adriatic coast and Mallorca. Even after his return to Hungary, life for a Communist writer during the regency of the right-wing Admiral Miklós Horthy could be precarious. Déry discovered this for himself when he was taken into custody for publishing a translation of André Gide’s book about his travels in the Soviet Union, Rétour de l’U.R.S.S. (1936), despite the fact that the book was critical of the Soviet Union and marked Gide’s definitive break with communism. Undeterred by political harassment, Déry continued his writing, completing his most acclaimed (and longest) novel Befejezetlen mondat (The Unfinished Sentence) between 1934 and 1938. However, the novel could appear in print only in 1948—the year Déry was awarded Hungary’s highest literary award, the Kossuth Prize—after the collapse of the Horthy regime, the end of World War II, and the Communist takeover of Hungary. Because of his public support for the revolution in 1956, Déry was arrested in 1957 and sentenced to nine years in prison. By now a well-known European literary figure, his sentence aroused considerable international protest across Europe, with Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, François Mauriac, J. B. Priestly, and T. S. Eliot weighing in on the injustice. Long suffering from severe nervous tension, Déry was terrified of the consequences of a lengthy prison term and thought that by avowing his behavior as a “poor Communist” his sentence might be dismissed or shortened. He was sent to prison but was released after three years as a result of the amnesty of 1960. However, he was banned from publishing anything until 1962—unless he publicly recanted, in written form. Déry complied with this demand and was duly allowed to resume his literary career. Oddly perhaps, Déry wrote next to nothing directly about his post–World War II prison years. The largely autobiographical Börtönnapok hordaléka: Önéletrajzi jegyzetek (Prison Days Deposits: Autobiographical Notes, 1958) and Ítélet nincs (No Decision, 1971) devote more space in fact to the prewar period. Two chapters (sixteen and seventeen) of his strange dystopian novel G. A. úr X-ben 206 | HungarY (Mr. G. A. in X., 1971) were probably broadly inspired by his own trial and prison experiences, but in no way do they directly reflect them. However, one work by Déry is noteworthy for what it reveals of the impact on him of his Communistera imprisonment. This is a collection of correspondence between Déry and his wife Böbe and his mother. Both sets of letters date from the period 1957 to 1960. Neither set sheds much light on the day to day details of Déry’s life behind bars. But in a sense the letters to his mother are the more interesting ones. And that is because of what they don’t say. Déry’s mother, Ernestin Rosenberg, came from a Viennese Jewish family whose first language was, of course, German. After marrying and settling in Budapest, Ernestin learned Hungarian but communicated with her son almost always in German. Déry loved his mother dearly and wanted to spare her the grief he knew his imprisonment would cause. With the complicity of his wife, Böbe, as well as friends and relatives, Ernestin was kept in the dark as to what had befallen her son. For his part, Déry engaged in an elaborate deception to keep it that way. He obviously could not let time pass without communicating with her, so he came up with the idea of writing her...

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