Mihály Babits

Mihály Babits (Hungarian: [ˈmihaːj ˈbɒbit͡ʃ]; 26 November 1883 – 4 August 1941) was a Hungarian poet, writer, essayist, and translator. His poems are well known for their intense religious themes. His novels such as “The Children of Death” (1927) explore psychological problems. Babits was born in Szekszárd. He studied at the University of Budapest from 1901 to 1905, where he met Dezső Kosztolányi and Gyula Juhász. He worked to become a teacher and taught at schools in Baja (1905–06), Szeged (1906–08), Fogaras (1908–11), Újpest (1911), and Budapest (1912–18).

His reputation for his poems in the literary life started in 1908.

He made a trip to Italy in the same year, which made him interested in Dante; he made several other trips in later years. This experience led him to translate Dante's Divine Comedy (Hell, 1913, Purgatory, 1920, and Paradise, 1923).

Briefly after the Hungarian Revolution of 1919 he became a Professor of Foreign Literature and modern Hungarian literature at the University of Budapest, but was soon removed for his pacifism after the revolutionary government fell.

In 1911, he became a staff writer on the magazine Nyugat.

Babits' 1918 novel The Nightmare (also known as King's Stork) is a science fiction novel about a split personality influenced by Freudian psychology. His 1933 novel Pilot Elza or the Perfect Society (Hungarian: Elza pilóta, vagy a tökéletes társadalom) is set in a dystopian future.

In 1921 married Ilona Tanner, who later published poetry under the name Sophie Török. Two years later he moved to Esztergom. In 1927 he became a member of the "Kisfaludy Társaság" (Kisfaludy Society) and in the same year he was made a trustee of the Baumgarten Prize.

He became the editor-in-chief of Nyugat in 1929 (sharing the role until 1933 with Zsigmond Móricz), a position he held until his death.

In 1937, he was diagnosed as having laryngeal cancer. He died in Budapest in 1941.