Jenő Rejtő (29 March 1905 - 1 January 1943) was a Hungarian journalist, pulp fiction writer and playwright. He died in a labour camp during World War II.

Early life

Jenő Rejtő was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary, on 29 March 1905, to Áron Reich Lipót and Wolf Ilona. He had two brothers, Lajos and Gyula. He lived with ill-health as a child, but took boxing and acting classes as well as writing poetry. He completed his studies in a drama school in 1924, after which he travelled extensively throughout Europe.

Career

After returning from his travelling, he made his living as a playwright in Hungary, most notably with his operetta, Aki mer, az nyer (Who Dares Wins, 1934). Later, he started to write adventure novels based on his trips and experiences abroad, using a writing style which included his unusual sense of humour. His most successful novels were written under the pseudonym P. Howard, and parodied the French Foreign Legion. His most popular novels combined elements from detective novels, romance and humour. He also wrote novels in the tradition of American Westerns, as well as a large number of cabaret farces, and editing the first and only edition of the newspaper, Nagykörút (Grand Boulevard).

Death

Starting in 1939, he could not publish his novels any more under his own name because of his Jewish origins. On 9 October 1942, an article in the Nazi Arrow Cross Party’s newspaper (Egyedül Vagyunk [We Are Alone]) exposed Rejtő as a Jew and reported that he was seen writing calmly in Budapest cafés while evading the labour service draft that was compulsory for Jewish men of military age (they were forbidden to perform arm-bearing service in the military). He was seriously ill by this time but was taken by force from hospital to do his labour service on the eastern front, into the Soviet Union. He died in Evdakovo, Voronezh Oblast, Soviet Union (then under Axis occupation) on 1 January 1943.

Legacy

In the early years of communism his works were only available on the black market as pre-war editions, but from the 1960s on, his novels were republished, and they gained instant popularity in Hungary (then still under communist rule). Some of his works have been made into films and comic books. Rejtő’s comic book adaptations by Pál Korcsmáros (1916-1975) are regarded as classics in their own right in Hungary. While a writer, he was a regular customer at the Cafe Japan (Japán kávéház) in Budapest, which was near Nova, his publisher. He paid for his coffee with lines written on napkins, which in turn were taken to Nova, where they were purchased and collated. Rejtő's memory is kept alive in Budapest. In 2001 a street was named after him, while in 2003 there was an exhibition dedicated to him in the Petőfi Museum of Literature (Petőfi Irodalmi Múzeum). In 2005 his picture appeared on a Hungarian postage stamp (as part of the series "Great Hungarians") and there was an initiative to erect his statue in Budapest.

Works

In English

Many of Rejtő's numerous works - the most famous of which are his Foreign Legion books and his "Dirty Fred" series - have been translated into English:

In Hungarian

The original Hungarian editions of his works entered the public domain everywhere on 1 January 2014 (70 years after the January following the author's death). All of the Hungarian texts and scans of most first editions of Rejtő's works are available on the archive website of the National Széchényi Library, Hungary's national library. Some of his most popular works not translated into English include: