BRÓDY, SÁNDOR

BRÓDY, SÁNDOR (1863–1924), Hungarian novelist and playwright. Born in Eger (Hungary), Bródy began his career as a journalist. In 1902 he started his own monthly Fehér könyv ("The White Book") and three years later helped to found the weekly Jovendő ("The Future"). He portrayed the typical citizen of Pest and his writing helped to mold the characteristic brand of humor associated with Budapest. Bródy's real literary merit lies, however, in the fact that he prepared the ground for the flowering of Hungarian prose in the 20th century. His style was archaic and folkish, interspersed with the emerging idiom of Pest. A number of his stories and plays introduce Jewish characters, and with Nyomor ("Misery," 1884) he became the first writer in Hungarian literature to describe the Jewish worker. His letter to Géza Gárdonyi (reprinted in Haladás, 1947, no. 17) praises Judaism, and in his last novel Rembrandt (1925; Eng. tr. 1928) his own Jewish associations and memories form an integral part of the whole book. His play Timár Liza (1914) dramatized the decadence of assimilated Jewish parvenus. Some of Bródy's plays were performed outside Hungary and several were adapted for the screen. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Magyar Zsidó Lexikon (1929), S.V.; A. Komlós, Bródy Sándor: Irók és elvek (1937); L. Hatvany, Irodalmi tanulmányok, 1 (1960); Magyar Irodalmi Lexikon, 1 (1963), S.V. (Jeno Zsoldos)