George Mikes | |
|---|---|
| Born | Mikes György (1912-02-15)15 February 1912 Siklós,Kingdom of Hungary,Austria-Hungary |
| Died | 30 August 1987(1987-08-30) (aged 75) London, England |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | Hungarian |
| Citizenship | British (from 1946) |
| Genre | Humour, journalism |
| Notable works | How to be an Alien |
| Children | 2 |
George Mikes (/ˈmɪkɛʃ/MIK-esh;[1]Hungarian:Mikes György,pronounced[ˈmikɛʃɟørɟ]; 15 February 1912 – 30 August 1987) was a Hungarian-born British journalist, humorist and writer, best known for his humorous commentaries on various countries.
George Mikes (Hungarian:Mikes György) was born in 1912, in the small town ofSiklós, in the southwest ofHungary.[2] 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 Budapest University, after that he worked as a lawyer[3] but at the same time he became a journalist and started to work forReggel ("Morning"), aBudapest newspaper. For a short while he was the columnist ofIntim Pista forSzínházi Élet ("Theatre Life"), another newspaper in Budapest.[4]
In 1938 Mikes became the London correspondent for two Hungarian newspapers,Reggel and8 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 theMunich 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 theIsle of Man in 1940.[5]
Living in exile in England, he broadcast to Hungary for the BBC during World War II, and also collaborated with the Hungarian emigration[clarification needed], and wrote political cabaret for the London Podium, a Hungarian theatre in London at that time, in collaboration with the Hungarian born composerMatyas Seiber. From 1939 he also made documentaries for the BBC Hungarian section, at first as a freelance correspondent and, from 1950, as an employee.[6] He was naturalised as aBritish citizen in 1946. In 1956, he went back to Hungary to cover theHungarian Revolution for BBC TV. From 1975 until his death on 30 August 1987 he also worked for the Hungarian section ofRadio Free Europe.
He was president of the London branch ofPEN, and a member of theGarrick Club.[7]
Mikes wrote in bothHungarian and English, forThe Observer,The Times Literary Supplement,Encounter,Irodalmi Újság,Népszava, theViennese Hungarian-languageMagyar Híradó, andVilág.
His friends included the Hungarian writerArthur Koestler, whose biography Mikes wrote (Arthur Koestler; the story of a friendship);J. B. Priestley; academicDoireann MacDermott;[8] andAndré Deutsch, whose publishing house promoted Mikes as a writer.[6]
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.
His first book, published in 1945, wasWe Were There To Escape – the true story of a Jugoslav officer about life in prisoner-of-war camps.The Times Literary Supplement praised the book for the humour it showed in parts, which led him to write his most famous satiric book,How to be an Alien, which proved a great success in post-war Britain in 1946. This book poked gentle fun at the English, including a one-line chapter on sex: "Continental people have sex lives; the English have hot-water bottles." In his subsequent books Mikes blended local jokes into his own humour, dealt with (among others) Japan (The Land of the Rising Yen),Israel (Milk and Honey,The Prophet Motive), the US (How to Scrape Skies), the United Nations (How to Unite Nations), Australia (Boomerang), the British again (How to be Inimitable andHow to be Decadent, both collected withHow to be an Alien asHow to be a Brit), and South America (How to Tango). Other subjects include God (How to be God), his cat (Tsi-Tsa), wealth (How to be Poor) and philosophy (How to be a Guru).
Apart from his commentaries, he wrote humorous fiction (Mortal Passion;The Spy Who Died of Boredom) and contributed to the satirical television seriesThat Was The Week That Was.
He wrote his ironic autobiography with the titleHow to be Seventy, published in 1982.[9]
Every now and then Mikes ventured into the territory of serious literature: his serious writing included a book about theHungarian secret police and he narrated a BBC television report of theHungarian Revolution of 1956.[10]
According toThomas Kabdebo [hu], himself a Hungarian immigrant writer, Mikes' favourite comic device was to place himself as an inveterate yet vulnerable traveller; an ardent rationalist with European values, where he discovers national pretensions behind proud phraseology. Thus, he was able to flesh out national stereotypes with comic characteristics.[7]
Mikes wrote over forty books, thirty-five of them humorous; however, in some way, it was a pity that hisHow to be an Alien was a long-lasting best seller. It pushed him into the category of critic who was viewed with benign fondness but not considered a serious thinker.[11]
In the preface to the 24th impression of his bookHow to be an Alien, he reflects on the book's success:[3]
Since then I have actually written about a dozen books but I might as well have never written anything else. I remained the author ofHow to be an Alien even after I had published a collection of serious essays.
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