Miklos Radnoti Biography

Miklós Radnóti, birth name Miklós Glatter (5 May 1909 – 10 November 1944) was a Hungarian poet who died in The Holocaust.

Radnóti was born in Budapest into an assimilated Jewish family. His life was considerably shaped by the fact that both his mother and his twin brother died at his birth. He refers to this trauma in the title of his compilation Ikrek hava ("Month of Gemini"/"Month of the Twins").

In his last years Hungarian society rejected Radnóti as a Jew, but in his poems he identifies himself very strongly as a Hungarian. His poetry mingles avant-garde and expressionist themes with a new classical style, a good example being his eclogues. His romantic love poetry is notable as well. Some of his early poetry was published in the short-lived periodical Haladás ("Progress"). His 1935 marriage to Fanni Gyarmati (born 1912) was exceptionally happy.

Radnóti converted to Catholicism in 1943. This was not prompted by the persecution of the Hungarian Jews from which converts to Christianity were initially exempted, for Radnóti consciously did so at a time when he could have no more advantage of his conversion. The reason was rather his long-standing fascination with Catholicism and his admiration to his former professor of literature, the Piarist priest Sándor Sík.