László Passuth (Budapest July 15, 1900- Balatonfüred, June 19, 1979) was Hungarian and a prolific author of historical fiction and translator. He is the father of art historian, Christina Passuth.
He graduated with a law degree from the University of Szeged. From 1919 to 1950 he worked mainly as a bank clerk and then, until his retirement, in a government office for translation. His first attempts as a writer appeared in the 1920s in several magazines. Passuth served as the main secretary of the Hungarian PEN_Club from 1945-60, although he was expelled in 1948 from the Hungarian Writers’ Union in 1948 under the Stalinist take-over.
His first novel, Eurasia, published in 1937, was followed by a number of historical novels; they showed sophisticated style and attention to precise historical detail. In 1939, he published The Rain God Weeps over Mexico (Eng. Title, Tlaloc Weeps for Mexico), a novel about Cortez and the conquest of Mexico; it was his first work to attract international attention; it was translated into French, German, Spanish, and English. Among his some 40 novels are also Joan of Naples (1940), based on the life of the medieval queen, Joan I, and Madrigal (1968), a novel around the life of composer Carlo Gesualdo.
Partial Bibliography
Eurasia (1937); Studies, Budapest (1937); The Rain God Weeps over Mexico (1939) (Eng. Title, Tlaloc Weeps for Mexico); Joan of Naples (1940); The Lombard Château (1940-1944); The Porphyrogenitus (Born in Purple) (1943); The Revolving Door (1944); Cloud and Oasis (1946); Black Velvet (1946); Aliens (1949); In the Eagle’s Talons (1956); Four Winds Transylvania (1957); Duke of Mantua, Musician (1957) about Monteverdi; Lagoons (1958); You will hear the Sirvilag (1959); Paradise in the ocean (1959); The Dragon’s Tooth (1960); The Third Majordomo (1962) (about Velazquez); Rome was buried in Ravenna (1963) about Theodoric the Ostrogoth; The Gods of Gold are Cold (1964) about Raphaël; Trench (1966); Madrigal (1968) about Gesualdo; Copper (1969); Eternal Spain (1969); Field cut seven times (1970); Naples (1972) (educational book); I met Esőistennel (1972); My encounter with the Rain God (1972); Gyilokjáró (1973); King of the Broken Mirror (1974); Memorial and So Forth (1975); Tower of Shadows (articles, essays and travel notes) (1977); Cave Pictures (autobiog.) (1978); Medusa (1979); Mirror of Water (1980); Ten Years under the same roof (1981), Anselme (1983).
source
(hu) (es) This article is essentially taken from the Hungarian and Spanish Wikipedia articles on László Passuth.
external sources
- Biography in Spanish
- Biographical notes in Spanish
- Obituary, in Spanish. Diario ABC, 21 June 1979, page. 31