Gábor T. Szántó

Gábor T. Szántó was born in Budapest in 1966. He studied law and political science and graduated from Eötvös Loránd University Budapest. He has been a participant of the Iowa International Writing Program Residency in the United States (2003). Szántó is the editor-in-chief of the Hungarian Jewish monthly Szombat. His additional field of interest is researching and teaching Modern Jewish Literature.

He published his first volume of stories, A tizedik ember (The Tenth Man), in 1995. A volume of two novellas, Mószer (The Informer) appeared in 1997. Szántó has published a novel in 2003: Keleti pályadvar, végállomas (Eastern Station, Last Stop)". His second short story book Lágermikulás (The Crunch of Empty Boots) was published in 2004 followed by a collection of poems A szabadulás íze (The Taste of Escape) in 2010. His novel, Édeshármas (Threesome) appeared in 2012, his novel Kafka macskái (Kafka's Cats) in 2014. His latest book is a novel entitled Europa Symphony (2019).

His novella (Mószer) appeared in German as In Schuld verstrickt (Edition Q, 1999). A volume of short stories (Обратный билет – Obratnij Bilet) came out in Russian at Text Publisher, 2008. His novel Kafka’s Cats was published in Turkey as Kafka’nın Kedileri (Epsilon, Kafka Kitap, 2018), and in Czech as Kafkovy Kocky (Garamond, 2020). His book with the title story served as the basis of the film 1945 is 1945 és más történetek (1945 and Other Stories, 2017). The volume will soon come out in Italy and China. The title story was also translated into English, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Slovakian and Slovenian. His short stories and essays have been translated to several languages. In 2003 one of his short stories was selected into the anthology Contemporary Jewish Writing in Hungary (University of Nebraska Press). In 2012 his poems were published in the anthology "I lived on this Earth..." Hungarian Poets on the Holocaust (Alba Press, London), and his writing was anthologized in the contemporary volume of The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization (Yale University Press).

One of his short stories (Homecoming) has been developed into a script and a feature film entitled 1945 directed by Hungarian film director Ferenc Török was shot in production Katapultfilm. Cameraman: Elemér Ragályi, music: Tibor Szemző. The film is distributed in 40 countries. Festival awards: - Miami Jewish Film Festival, Best Narrative, 2017 - 67th Berlin International Film Festival Panorama section, 3rd place Audience Award Fiction Film, 2017 - Titanic International Film Festival, Budapest, Audience Award, 2017 - Washington Jewish Film Festival, Audience Award, 2017 - Chattanooga Jewish Film Festival, Audience Award, 2017 - Berlin Jewish Film Festival, Best Directed Film, 2017 - 34th Jerusalem Film Festival, Yad Vashem Avner Shalev Prize for best artistic representation of Holocaust related topic, 2017 - 37th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, San Francisco Critics Circle Award and Audience Award, 2017 - 30th Der neue Heimatfilm, Freistadt, Austria, Best Fiction Film, 2017 - Central European Film Festival, Timișoara, Romania, Best Film, 2017 - 19th Film by the Sea International Film Festival on Film and Literature, Vlissingen, The Netherlands, Main Prize - Vienna Jewish Film Festival Audience Award, 2017 - Waterloo Historical Film Festival, Critic's Prize, 2017 - Warshaw Jewish Film Festival, Best Screenplay Award and Audience Award, 2017 - Australian Jewish International Film Festival Audience Award for Best Feature Film, 2017 - Main Prize of the Hungarian Film Critics, 2018 - 14. Jewish Motifs International Film Festival, Warshaw, Audience Award, 2018 - Traverse City Film Festival, 2018, Prize of Best Foreign Film