Menyhért Lakatos

Menyhért Lakatos (April 11, 1926, Vésztő — August 21, 2007, Budapest) was a Hungarian Romani writer^[1][2]

Since 1988 he was President of the Hungarian Romani Cultural Association (Magyarországi Cigányok Kulturális Szövetsége).^[2]

His most famous book, Füstös képek ("Images in Smoke", translated in English as The Color of Smoke) is a novel based on personal experience, set in World War II. It is a bildungsroman^[3] that shows life in a Roma village in Northeast Hungary, from 1940 until the German occupation of the country in 1944 when Roma people were put into death camps. While filled with amusing anecdotes, with a petty criminal subplot, and adolescent eroticism, it portrays dehumanization of Romani in the society.^[4][5]

There is the Lakatos Menyhért School in Budapest.^[6]

Books

• 1975: Füstös képek
  • Bulgarian: Окадени картини, 1977
  • German: Bitterer Rauch. Verlag Volk und Welt. Berlin 1978 (ISBN 9783421018335), 1979, 1980, 1982
  • French: Couleur de fumée : une épopée tzigane, Paris, Actes Sud, 1986.
  • English: The Color of Smoke: An Epic Novel of the Roma, 2015, ISBN 0985062347
• 1975: Angárka és Busladarfi
• 1979: A hét szakállas farkas
• 1979: A paramisák ivadékai
• 1981: Az öreg fazék titka
• 1981: Csandra szekere
  • German: Csandras Karren. Zigeunergeschichten. Volk und Welt, Berlin 1984
• 1982: Akik élni akarta
• 1995: Hosszú éjszakák meséi
  • German: Märchen der langen Nächte. Roma-Märchen. Wieser Verlag, Klagenfurt 2004 (ISBN 9783851294538), 1999
• 1998: A titok
• 1999: Tenyérből mondtál jövendőt

Märchen der langen Nächte. Roma-Märchen. Wieser Verlag, Klagenfurt 2004 ISBN 9783851294538

Awards

Significant awards include:^[7]

• 2000: National Romani Self-Government Lifetime Achievement Award
• 1999: Hungarian Laurel Wreath Award
• 1995: Book of the Year Award
• 1993: Attila József Prize
• 1976: Attila József Prize
• 1976: Milán Füst Prize

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Menyhért Lakatos.