George Mikes

(OpenAlex author record A5066890426 for George Mikes.) • Fields Of Work: Indexed under Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis, Race, History, and American Society, Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism, Japanese History and Culture, Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies (OpenAlex author record A5066890426 for George Mikes.) • Born: George Mikes was born in 1912.

• Name — George Mikes • Birth Name — Mikes György • Born — 15 February 1912 • Birthplace — Siklós, Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary • Died — 30 August 1987 • Place of death — London, England • Occupation — * Journalist • humourist • writer • Language — * Hungarian • English • Citizenship — * Hungary (until 1947) • United Kingdom (from 1947) • Education — Royal Hungarian Pázmány Péter University • Genre — * Humour • journalism • Notable Works — How to be an Alien • Children — 2 George Mikes (Mikes György, pron; 15 February 1912 – 30 August 1987) was a Hungarian and British journalist, humourist and writer, best known for his humorous commentaries on various countries.

George Mikes (Hungarian: Mikes György) was born in 1912, in the small town of Siklós, in the southwest of Hungary.[5] His father, Alfréd Mikes, was a successful lawyer, a profession he wanted his son to follow. Mikes graduated in Budapest in 1933; he studied law and received his doctorate at the Royal Hungarian Pázmány Péter University, after that he worked as a lawyer[6] but at the same time he became a journalist and started to work for Reggel ("Morning"), a Budapest newspaper. For a short while he was the columnist of Intim Pista for Színházi Élet ("Theatre Life"), another newspaper in Budapest.[7] In 1938 Mikes became the London correspondent for two Hungarian newspapers, Reggel and 8 Órai Ujság ("8 o'clock News") and he worked for the former until 1940. The experience of the German Jewish refugees coming to his home in Hungary for help after 1933 had left an abiding impression upon him. So in 1938, when Mikes had originally been sent to London to cover the Munich Crisis and expected to stay for only a couple of weeks, just one year before the outbreak of World War II he decided not to return to Hungary, and instead remained in England. He worked for the BBC's Hungarian Service from 1939 onwards, interrupted only by his internment as an enemy alien on the Isle of Man in 1940. Living in exile in England, Mikes broadcast to Hungary for the BBC during World War II, and also collaborated with the Hungarian emigration, and wrote political cabaret for the London Podium, a Hungarian theatre in London at that time, in collaboration with the Hungarian born composer Mátyás Seiber. From 1939 he also made documentaries for the BBC Hungarian section, at first as a freelance correspondent and, from 1950, as an employee.[8] Mikes naturalised as a British subject on 16 September 1947.[9] In 1956, he went back to Hungary to cover the Hungarian Revolution for BBC Television. His authorative book The Hungarian Revolution was published by Andre Deutsch in 1957. From 1975 until his death on 30 August 1987 he also worked for the Hungarian section of Radio Free Europe. He was president of the London branch of International PEN, and a member of the Garrick Club. Mikes wrote in both Hungarian and English, for The Observer, The Times Literary Supplement, Encounter, Irodalmi Újság, Népszava, the Viennese Hungarian-language Magyar Híradó, and Világ. His friends included the Hungarian writer Arthur Koestler, whose biography - Arthur Koestler; the story of a friendship - Mikes wrote; J. B. Priestley; academic Doireann MacDermott;[10] and André Deutsch, whose publishing house promoted Mikes as a writer. He married twice and had a son, Martin, by his first marriage, and a daughter, Judith, by his second. He died in London on 30 August 1987. On 15 September 1991, a memorial plaque was unveiled at his childhood home.

• The Epic of Lofoten (1941) • Eight humorists (1954) • We Were There to Escape: the true story of a Jugoslav officer (1945) • The Hungarian Revolution (1957) • A Study in Infamy: the operations of the Hungarian Secret Police (AVO) (1959) • Arthur Koestler; the story of a friendship (1983)

Indexed under Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis, Race, History, and American Society, Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism, Japanese History and Culture, Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies. Recorded as writer, journalist, biographer and satirist. Associated with Health First.