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Died 21 August 2007, Budapest, Hungary Books The Color of Smoke: An Epic Novel of the Roma | ||
Menyhért Lakatos (April 11, 1926, Vésztő — August 21, 2007, Budapest) was a Hungarian Romani writer
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Since 1988 he was President of the Hungarian Romani Cultural Association (Magyarországi Cigányok Kulturális Szövetsége).
His most famous book, Füstös képek ("Images in Smoke", translated in English as The Color of Smoke) is a novel based on personal experience, set in World War II. It is a bildungsroman that shows life in a Roma village in Northeast Hungary, from 1940 until the German occupation of the country in 1944 when Roma people were put into death camps. While filled with amusing anecdotes, with a petty criminal subplot, and adolescent eroticism, it portrays dehumanization of Romani in the society.
There is the Lakatos Menyhért School in Budapest.
Books
Märchen der langen Nächte. Roma-Märchen. Wieser Verlag, Klagenfurt 2004 ISBN 9783851294538
Awards
Significant awards include:
