is a Hungarian writer and historian. Born in the year of the 1956 Revolution, he took active part in dissident activities from the early-1980s. Since 1979 he has published a number of studies, essays and articles both in samizdat and in legitimate papers and translated contemporary English, Irish, Indian and Canadian works. In 1984, he did the first Hungarian (samizdat) translation of the works of such banned authors as George Orwell (Animal Farm and Selected Essays) and Arthur Koestler (The Doom of Politics). In 1986 he took part in launching the samizdat paper Határ/idö/napló (Transylvanian Monitor) reporting regularly on Ceausescu’s terror in Romania.
Of the 200,000 Hungarian refugees who fled Hungary following the Soviet invasion in 1956, close to 20,000 were what is now known to border controls as “unaccompanied minors”. Based on his archival research and the personal testimonies of these people, now in their seventies, historian and former dissident Béla Nóvé traces their life stories.
In 1980s Hungary, as in the USSR and many other communist ruled countries of eastern and central Europe, censorship and opposition to it was a hot issue. A onetime dissident turned historian recalls the passionate debates at the time and establishes their continuing relevance in the post-Wall world.
