Poet, translator of literary creations, publicist, editor.
He was born in Banatska Dubica, his father was an engineer dealing with the rivers’ systematisation. He spends his childhood in Temesvár (Timisoara), then at Ineu and he attends his high-school at Arad and Timisoara. Starting with 1900, he studies at the Patriotic High-school in Sopron, then at the Ludovika Academy in Budapest; as a result, he works as a local guard in Timisoara.
His first poem (Nyárutó) is published in 1906 in Magyar Szemle, a Hungarian paper and starting with this year he becomes the correspondent of some newspapers from Budapest and several villages – he sends them poems, translations, and reports. The most important moment of his life and career is 1908, when he participates in the foundation of the South Literature Association and he contributes to the development of the town’s spiritual life by means of some early literature programs. Between 1908 and 1914 he publishes more poems in Temesvári Hírlap. He never has more hundreds of poems published in an independent volume.
He begins his journalistic activity in 1910 at the Függetlenség editorial house in Arad, and then he becomes the editor of two monthly magazines, Kultúra (1910) and Jövő. He is sent, as a mobilized officer, to the Galician front in 1914. His writings, featuring the cruelty of the battlefield, emphasise the lack of human atrocity; subsequently, these writings form the content of his first volume, that is published as A kárpáti harcokról (1915) in Hungarian language and Bruder Feind (1916) in German. He is hurt and taken to the military hospital in Vienna; after he recovers, he carries out his work at the Military Archive in Vienna. Here he meets important writers such as Rainer Maria Rilke, Stefan Zweig, Franz Theodor Csokor.
At the end of the war-time he returns to Budapest, joins the civil revolution and he is the main editor of the Vörös Lobogó (1919) newspaper. During the proletarian revolution, he works with Lukács György in topics of public education, that is why he emigrates to Vienna after the communal repression. He enrols for the University in Vienna, where he learns oriental languages (Sanskrit, Old Persian) and ancient Chinese; moreover, he also studies the Greek literature. These studies are going to be the basis of his subsequent huge activity as a translator. He knows German as a native language, thus his activity as a translator comprises two language surfaces: he translates from foreign languages into Hungarian and German. In 1921 at Vienna, he publishes an independent volume of poems, written by Ady Endre and translated into German.
In 1923 he returns to Arad and publishes the Géniusz (1924-1926) literature magazine. He is the founder, publisher and main editor of the 6 órai újság (1930-1940) newspaper, published in a large number of issues in Timisoara. His collection of publicist writings is published in 1960 in an independent volume, A pokol tornácán (On the Veranda of Hell).
Franyó Zoltán is the symbol of „universal writer.” His literary translations are published in more than 65 volumes, he highlights the pearls of the universal lyrics in Hungarian and German language and translates the old Arabian, Chinese and old Greek poems. His most important creation consists in the translation of Goethe’s Faust I. and Ancient Faust into Hungarian (1957). In 1957 he starts the new series of literary translations in a number of more volumes as the Évezredek húrjain. The three editions related to Eminescu’s Esthajnalcsillag (The Evening Star) (a simultaneous translation from Hungarian into German 1965) as well as Eminescu’s Versek (Poems) (1973) are also essential.
He is a member of the Austrian PEN Club. He is awarded with more literature prizes; the most outstanding prize is the international one, the Herder Prize, he obtains in 1970 for his qualitative literary translations and his contribution to the creation of ties among cultures and civilisations within the frames of universal literature.
A statue in front of his former house in Timisoara is still preserving his memory.
