Gelléri, Andor Endre
GELLÉRI, ANDOR ENDRE
GELLÉRI, ANDOR ENDRE (1907–1945), Hungarian novelist. Gelléri, who was born in Budapest, worked as a dyer and as a locksmith. His literary talents were first discovered in a short-story competition run by the evening newspaper Az Est. His prize enabled him to complete his education in Germany. Gelléri's first novel, Nagymosoda ("The Laundry," 1931), combined reality with dreams and visions. His characters were wretched slum dwellers, some of them Jews. His other works include Szomjas inasok ("Thirsty Apprentices," 1933); a book of short stories, Hold utca ("Hold Street," 1934); Kikötö ("The Harbor," 1935); and Villám és esti tüz ("Lightning and Evening Fire," 1940). Following the Nazi occupation of Hungary he was sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp at the end of 1944 and died at the Wells camp in Germany, a victim of typhus, two days after the liberation in May 1945. Gelléri's autobiography, Egy önérzet története ("The Story of One Man's Self-Respect"), appeared posthumously in 1957.
bibliography:
M. Szabolcsi (ed.), A magyar irodalom története, 6 (1964), 757–66; Magyar Irodalmi Lexikon, 1 (1963), 390–1.
[Baruch Yaron]