Early Career and Influences
Vizinczey's first published works were poems which appeared in George Lukacs's Budapest magazine Forum in 1949, when the writer was 16. He studied under Lukacs at the University of Budapest and graduated from the city's Academy of Theatre and Film Arts in 1956. He wrote at that time two plays, The Last Word and Mama, which were banned by the Hungarian Communist regime. He took part in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and after a short stay in Italy, ended up in Canada speaking only 50 words of English, and eventually taking Canadian citizenship. He learned English writing scripts for Canada's National Film Board and the CBC. He edited Canada's short-lived literary magazine, Exchange. In 1966 he moved to London.
Vizinczey cites his literary ideals as Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Balzac, Stendhal and Kleist. His best-known works are the novels In Praise of Older Women (1965) and An Innocent Millionaire (1983).
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