Born in 1943 in Budapest, Mihály Szegedy-Maszák graduated at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, and went on to study at Cambridge. His main fields of research were comparative literature, cultural studies, 19th century Hungarian literature, and the theory of the novel. He was Professor of Cultural History at Eötvös Loránd University (1981–1990), then became a regular member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He spent years as visiting professor at King’s College in Cambridge (1979–1980), at the American Council of Learned Societies (1984–1985), and at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he was Hungarian chair professor (1988–1991), then Professor of Central Eurasian Studies and Comparative Literature (1991–2008). Szegedy-Maszák also edited the academic journal Hungarian Studies.

Mihály Szegedy-Maszák was the first to write a monograph on Sándor Márai after the regime change. He also wrote monographs on Zsigmond Kemény, Géza Ottlik and Dezső Kosztolányi, and a book on literary canons.

Book(s) of Mihály Szegedy-Maszák offered by CEEOLPress