Eugene Fodor (Author)
Eugene Fodor (born October 14, 1905 in Léva , Austria-Hungary ; ↑ February 18, 1991 in Torrington , Connecticut ) was a Hungarian-American writer and editor of travel literature with whom he has been extremely successful. His talent for languages (he mastered five foreign languages), cosmopolitanism and a certain thirst for adventure have enabled him to create a company that has survived to this day, albeit under different successors. At the moment (from 2016) the American media company Internet Brands in California owns all rights to the imprint of Fodor’s . - The great success of Eugene Fodor's travel guides is mainly explained by the fact that, in addition to the usual references to sights, hotels, etc., he had a lot of interesting things to say about modern culture and people in the countries covered.
Streak of life
No details seem to have been passed down about Eugene Fodor's origins and family. His hometown became Slovak in 1918 and was henceforth called Levice. So he probably grew up in two different countries, which somehow seems to have been decisive for his further life.
In the 1920s he studied economics in Prague , Grenoble and Hamburg . He then worked as a translator for a French shipping company. He also wrote travel articles that he sent to Hungarian and French newspapers.
From 1930 to 1933 Eugene Fodor was a travel correspondent in Prague. He then worked in England, where in 1936 his first travel guide, On the Continent - The Entertaining Travel Annual , was published by Francis Aldor in London .
When World War II broke out in Europe in 1939 , Eugene Fodor was in the United States on business. He stayed there and eventually became an American citizen. From 1942 to 1947 he was a soldier in the US Army, where he worked, among other things, in the Intelligence Service Office of Strategic Services of the American War Department. - In 1945 he played a leading role in the liberation of Prague and Pilsen and was highly decorated for it. - After the war, Eugene Fodor stayed in Prague for about a year, where he met the Czech Vlasta Zobel, his future wife.
After returning to Europe at some point, Eugene Fodor founded the company Fodor's Modern Guides Inc. in Paris in 1949 , with which he wanted to direct the publication of his books in Europe and overseas. From 1950 the American publisher David McKay published its first travel guide. From 1952, German translations were also published continuously.
In 1964 Eugen Fodor returned to the States and settled in Torrington in Litchfield County , Connecticut. In 1968 he sold his company to David McKay and retired into private life.
Random House then took over the rights from David McKay in 1986 and passed it on to Internet Brands in 2016.
Web links
- Literature by and about Eugene Fodor in the catalog of the German National Library
- A short biography about Eugene Fodor in the Encyclopædia Britannica
- A series of travel guides in the Internet Archive digital library
- Index entry for Eugene Fodor in the database of the German Biography
- Eugene Fodor's tomb in the Find a Grave database
Remarks
- ↑ Another account states that he was in the USA on business as early as 1938 and, when he heard about the Munich Agreement there - which also affected his homeland - spontaneously decided never to return to Europe "except in uniform" .
- ↑ This intelligence service was dissolved in September 1945. Eugene Fodor then still belonged to the CIA (founded in 1947) for years and also recruited numerous of his authors from there: "Send me people who can write, not civil engineers."
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Fodor, Eugene |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Fodor, Eugene |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Hungarian-American writer and editor of travel literature |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 14, 1905 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Léva , Austria-Hungary |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 18, 1991 |
| Place of death | Torrington , Connecticut |