Janikovszky Éva. Pályakép Mozaikokban (Mosaic of a Career) by Gabriella Komáromi (review)

Following the death of Éva Janikovszky in 2003, it took a decade until her literary estate was evaluated and a biography written about her. This credit is due to Gabriella Komáromi, who is known in Hungary and beyond as scholar and critic of children’s literature. Following seminal literary histories, several contributions to literary studies, and many book reviews, she first published a biography of the Hungarian storyteller of fairytales Lazar Erwin, followed by the present volume on the life and work of Éva Janikovszky.

Éva Janikovszky enjoys international recognition as children’s book author; her books have been translated into more than 36 languages. She lived during times that continue to cause controversy. The years of Communist dictatorship under Matyas Rákosi, a student of Stalin, and of the government of Janos Kádar, which witnessed the Hungarian Uprising of 1956, are still awaiting their critical historical assessment.

One has to see Éva Janikovszky within the conflicting context of this period. Born into the upper middle class, she was a steadfast socialist all her life; her political convictions and inner struggles left their marks in her texts. Her works are documents of contemporary history, and even her picture books can be interpreted as an expression of her open-minded, tolerant views.

Komáromi abandons the strict chronology of biographical narratives in favor of a character portrait, pieced together by many mosaic fragments, of the exceptional author Janikovszky, who never had the intention of becoming a writer.

Gabriella Komáromi reconstructs Janikovszky’s childhood and adolescence from her diaries, traces her path to becoming a writer, and follows her changeful career marked by long writing intermissions. This first part of the book portrays Hungarian society before World War II as perceived by an adolescent, while also describing how and why Éva Janikovszky began to write and documenting the success of her first picture books.

The subsequent chapters approach her work from a more theoretical perspective. Readers learn about Éva Janikovszky’s intended audience, how she conceived her heroes and conceptualized her picture books, and the relevance of the historical context. A whole chapter is dedicated to Janikovszky’s “God-given” humor. Humor is a hallmark of her picture books, often paired with irony, extending the communicative possibilities of her texts.

The picture books of Éva Janikovszky would not be the same without the illustrations by Laszlo Reber, who deserves his own chapter. The words and images belong together and join forces in telling the story – Laszlo Reber can thus be considered as co-author of the picture books. Trusting in the simplicity of cartoonish line drawings, he succeeds in rendering even the most difficult situations and events in his illustrations. Critics called the two the “well-rehearsed team from Hungary”.

The following chapters of the biography shed light on the diversity of Éva Janikovszky’s writings. Apart from picture books, she published fairy-tales and several novels for children, including the novel “Raspberry Syrup and Straw“, which appeared at the height of her career and was adapted for film.

In the 1980s, Éva Janikovszky fell increasingly silent, and in the 1990s, she began writing books for adults: newspaper features and novellas, stories on the topic of ageing, subjective musings, which always incorporated autobiographical elements.

With this biography, Gabriella Komáromi has produced a well-researched, extensive portrait of an exceptional author. Readers it will gain a richer understanding of aspects of Hungarian children’s literature, the history of this literature and of its producers living in Hungary during the middle of this past century.