Sánta was born in Brasov, in an ethnic Hungarian enclave of Romania, in 1927, the third child of a Szekler farmer and a labourer. He attended the Reformed College of Debrecen, but dropped out and was married when he was 20. Sánta had four sons.
To support his family, he went to work in a tractor factory in Budapest in the early 1950s. Late he took up a position at the Ganz Crane and Ship Building factory in the capital.
In 1963, Sánta published The Fifth Seal, his most famous novel, set during the time of Hungary's short-lived but terrible fascist regime. He became an independent writer in 1968.
The Fifth Seal was made into a film by the director Zoltán Fábri in 1976. Fábri also adapted another of Sánta's books, Twenty Hours, in 1964.
Sánta was awarded the József Attila Prize in 1956 and 1964. He was presented the Kossuth Prize, Hungary's highest honour for artists, in 1973. In 2007, he was granted the Hungarian Order of Merit, Commander's Cross.
The Ministry of Education and Culture pays its respects to a great artist.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI) / Photo: Szilárd Koszticsák (MTI)
