Éva Janikovszky


Éva Janikovszky wrote 35 books and edited hundreds of them. She discovered Ervin Lázár and Pál Békés. She had eyes for talents, and was happy to find one. Her works are read in 36 languages. Her books were adrift round the world on the tide of anti-authority spirit in children's literature. She became a discovery, and many failed to perceive that it was not always children that Éva Janikovszky took sides with. The coin always had two faces in her writing. Today we already know that she was the only Hungarian author of children's books with a real chance to win Andersen Price. (She was the member of the Andersen jury for a period, and that's no minor rank, either. That accomplished woman had her bearings in the world of children's books in several languages.) Her art was distinguished by a number of prizes, but it was only as late as in 2003 - almost too late - that she won the highest one in her homeland, Kossuth Prize.
She was born Éva Kucses and published her first book (Trifles, 1957) as Éva Kispál. A novel for girls, Flames of Straw in 1960 was the first to feature her name as Éva Janikovszky. And before the decade was out she was already a phenomenon, due to her picture books. The stuff for the monologues in them was the inexhaustible relationship of child and adults. And her domain of artist was everyday life - with its specifically everyday ideas, experiences, conflicts, challenges and communication strategies. With those of the adult and those of the child. With their otherness and their sameness. Because Éva Janikovszky never forgot for a moment that different experiences, patterns of thinking, reactions of feeling and mechanisms of remembering belong to the former and belong to the latter. Things have different values and measures for this one and for that one. (See Did You Know, Too 1963, If I Were a Grown-up 1965, Believe It or Not 1966, Happiness! 1967, Answer Politely When You Are Asked 1968, Something Always Happens to Me 1972, Who Does This Kid Take After? 1974, Fine That It's a Boy, Fine That It's a Girl 1983) She was incredibly meticulous about work. The text of Who Does This Kid Take After? was first 120 pages, and due to successive cuts only 20 remained. With her novels (Flames of Straw, Laburnum, Strawberry Squash with Straw, The Big Downpour, The Seven Wines) and with her journalism (Written for Adults, Iloveyou, Keep Smiling Please, Encore) she was far less merciless to herself. Or she could not afford it. With Encore she already had to make haste. But the latest works were as well studded with jewels. She offers us clever comfort and serene, wise help to live. We are grateful that she, eventually, wrote even for us, adults, though we had felt even her children books as ours. Because of "the other face of the coin".
Whenever I think of her these days my fantasy struggles to transgress everydayness. I fancy that she still works somewhere in a celestial editorial. She is hammering her legendary old Mercedes typewriter which she somehow took with her. Éva Janikovszky is writing her stories, to be illustrated, as of old, by László Réber. She was waiting for him.
Gabriella Komáromi