The naming ceremony will take place on October 5, said bookshop owner Csaba Tóth, adding that Szabó had given her written consent for the renaming.
Szabó told the Hungarian News Agency that she would visit Debrecen, where she was born, to celebrate her 90th birthday. The writer's secondary school will host the celebrations.
Also timed to coincide with the birthday will be the release of Mária Silkó Szurmai's book on Szabó entitled Respect my Present. Szurmai is a leading cultural figure in Debrecen and has known Szabó for more than 30 years. The book is based on conversations with the author and other research. It presents another side of Szabó, showing her work as a teacher, Szurmai said.
Szabó is perhaps Hungary's foremost woman novelist. She has also written plays, essays, studies, memories and poetry.
Szabó graduated from the University of Debrecen as a teacher of Latin and Hungarian. Afterward, she taught in secondary schools in Debrecen and Hódmezővásárhely. Between 1945 and 1949 she was worked in the Ministry of Religion and Education.
She married the writer and translator Tibor Szobotka in 1947.
She began her writing career as a poet, publishing her first book, Lamb, in 1947. This was followed by Back to the human in 1949. In the same year, she was awarded the Baumgarten Prize, which was withdrawn for political reasons. She was fired from the ministry in the same year.
Between 1949 and 1958, Hungary's communist regime did not allow her works to be published, and, as her husband had also lost his job for political reasons, she returned to teaching. During this period, she wrote her first novel, Fresco. The book, which was not published until 1958, met with overwhelming success.
Szabó's works have been published in more than 40 countries around the world, and she has won numerous prizes in Hungary and abroad. In 2003, she was awarded Frances's Prix Femina Étranger for best foreign novel.
Her novel Abigail was chosen as the 6th most popular novel in the Hungarian version of The Big Read. Three more of her novels made the top hundred in the list: Für Elise, An Old-fashioned Story and The Door.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
