A LYRICAL EVOCATION OF CHILDHOOD

Ottó Tolnai: Ördögfej

Abstract

This work deals with Ottó Tolnai’s young adult novel, Ördögfej [The Devil’s Head], published in 1970. More than fifty years have passed since its publication; however the work’s reception has remained quite poor, and the literature has hardly mentioned it as if it had been forgotten by scholars, considering this early prose work by Tolnai irrelevant. Even so, published immediately after his first novel titled Rovarház [The House of Insects] (1969), Ördögfej is also an important work by the author. In this novel, written for young readers, Tolnai’s favorite motifs, metaphors, and typical small-town, quirky characters, which would often appear later, were already present in a rudimentary state. The study analyses the novel’s formative force and explores the secret of Tolnai’s literary process which is realized on the level of visual art.