Karinthy, Frigyes
Entry updated 29 June 2026. Tagged: Author.
(1887-1938) Hungarian translator and author, best known for his work outside the sf field, mostly humorous Satires first published as newspaper feuilletons; he also translated into Hungarian works by Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain, among others; father of Ferenc Karinthy. His untranslated first story, first published in an unidentified periodical and seemingly never translated, was visibly written under the influence of Jules Verne. His passionate opposition to World War One vividly drives the arguments contained in the first of his two continuations of Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726; rev 1735) – Utázas Faremidóba (1916) and Capillária (1921) – assembled as Voyage to Faremido/Capillaria (omni trans Paul Tabori 1965 Hungary), both of them being intensely imagined Fantastic Voyages whose stopping points are societies conceived with Thought Experiment clarity. Faremindo carries Karinthy's version of Gulliver to a Robot society whose inhabitants communicate by musical tones (see Communications; Music) – hence the name of their country: fa re mi do – a harmony which pervades the entire world, putting specifically to shame human behaviour after 1914. The second carries Gulliver to an Under the Sea domain ruled by women (see Women in SF). Sharp-tongued and convincingly Swiftian, they are impressive (though at times misogynist) introductions to his melancholy, sometimes savage view of the twentieth century, a sense of a profoundly dysfunctional civilization that he dramatized prolifically in a variety of genres, often engaging in formal and Linguistics experiments. In Mennyei riport ["Celestial Report"] (1937) Merlin Oldtime, a British journalist, visits other Dimensions, where a series of Alternate Histories of the world can be examined. Karinthy's career, and his prescient use of robots as symbols of the dawning new age, were similar to Karel Čapek's, but he pulled fewer punches.
Though its title has an sf-like ring, Utazás a koponyám körül: Egy életmentő mütét története (1937; trans Vernon Duckworth Barker as A Journey Round My Skull 1939) is in fact a memoir of Karinthy's partial recovery from brain surgery. [JC]
see also: Hungary; Sequels by Other Hands.
Frigyes Ernő Karinthy
born Budapest, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Hungary): 25 June 1887
died Sifok, Lake Balaton, Hungary: 29 August 1938
works
series
Gulliver
- Utazás Faremidóba: Gulliver ötödik útja (Budapest, Hungary: Athenaeum, 1916) [Gulliver: pb/Lázló vendrei]
- Capillária: Riport Gulliver hatodik útjáról (Budapest, Hungary: Kultúra, 1921) [Gulliver: pb/uncredited]
- Voyage to Faremido/Capillaria (Budapest, Hungary: Corvina Press, 1965) [omni of the above two: trans Paul Tabori: omits Karinthy's introductory letter to H G Wells: Gulliver: hb/Lilla Lóránt]
individual titles
- Mennyei riport ["Celestial Report"] (Budapest, Hungary: Nova Irodalmi Intézet, 1937) [hb//Jenő Pályi]
nonfiction
- Utazás a koponyám körül: Egy életmentő mütét története (Budapest, Hungary: Athenaeum, 1937) [nonfiction: memoir: hb/Mihályfi Erőné]
- A Journey Round My Skull (London: Faber and Faber, 1939) [nonfiction: memoir: trans by Vernon Duckworth Barker of the above: hb/uncredited]
links
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