Biography

László Végel is a prose writer, playwright, essayist and critic from Novi Sad. He was born in 1941 in Srbobran (Vojvodina), where he completed his early education, and has lived in Novi Sad ever since.

For many years, Végel worked as the editor of the literary supplement of the daily newspaper Magyar Szó, as well as editor of the Drama Editorial Board at Television Novi Sad, a position he left in 1991 during the purge of journalists deemed politically unsuitable.

During one of the most difficult decades in recent history, he served as the coordinator of the Novi Sad office of the Open Society Foundation, supporting independent media, publishing initiatives, and cultural projects that stood in contrast to the dominant, isolationist political climate of the time.

Végel began his literary career in 1965 with critical texts published in the influential journal Új Symposion. Since then, he has maintained a strong presence in the literature of Hungarians in Vojvodina, as well as in the broader literary spaces of former Yugoslavia and Serbia. He has contributed to all major literary magazines in the region. Following the political changes of 1989, he also began publishing extensively in Hungary, both books and essays in prominent literary journals.

In 2005, a monograph titled Végel-Symposium was published in Budapest, featuring selected critical essays by Hungarian, Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian critics. Its editor, Zoltán Virág, emphasized that Végel’s work is significant for its synthesis of Hungarian literary traditions and the narrative and discursive frameworks of the former Yugoslavia. In that sense, Végel belongs equally to Hungarian literature, while also being one of the few minority authors fully integrated into Serbian literary culture.

As Aleksandar Tišma noted, Végel is a writer of modern, urban sensibility, while Péter Esterházy regarded him as a forerunner of contemporary Hungarian prose. In addition to his prose, Végel is also an accomplished playwright, whose works have been staged across the former Yugoslavia by prominent directors such as Dušan Jovanović, Ljubiša Ristić and Ljubiša Georgijevski.

Selected works

Novels:
Memoirs of a Pimp (1967), A Passion Course (1969), Double Exposition (1984), The Novi Sad Trilogy (1993), The Great Central-Eastern-European Feast Enters a Picaresque Novel (1996), Exterritorium (2000), Parenesis (2003)

Short prose:
We Are Swearing, and Our Eyes Are Full of Tears (1969)

Essays:
The Challenge of a Poem (1975), Renunciation and Survival (1986), Abraham’s Knife (1987), Life on the Edge (1992), Wittgenstein’s Weaver (1994), Homeless Essays (2002), Writing Time, Meanwhile (2003)

Drama:
Judita and Other Dramas (2005)

Awards and recognitions

Végel has received numerous awards, including the Mladost Prize, Ady Endre Prize, Free Press Prize, Tibor Déry Prize, Jelenkor Prize, the Gold Medal for lifetime achievement awarded by the President of Hungary (2000), Book of the Year in Hungary for Exterritorium (2001), the Milán Füst Prize of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2003), the Hungarian “Pulitzer” Prize (2005), and the prestigious Kossuth Prize (2009).

He was also a member of the jury of Sterijino pozorje in 1990 and 1991, and served as a selector for plays from Vojvodina.