Born in Budapest in 1936, she fled westward after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and settled in the United States in 1957. She earned her degree at Yale in English, Drama and History. She went on to write theatre and literary criticism and essays. She published three books, among them a biography of Ferenc Molnár, and was an active translator of literature. Her most successful works were her English renditions of István Örkény's Catsplay and Flower Show.
  
She was also active on the international literary scene, and was associated with several Hungarian and American magazines. She had been head of the PEN Center for Writers in Exile, and edited its journal, and had also been a member of the Nobel Committee.

 

Clara Györgyey died on Monday in the town of Orange, Connecticut. "Thousands of miles from Budapest, she keeps her eye on Hungarian literary and theatre life from the bucolic village of Orange in America. She watches from a distance, yet keenly," wrote former Hungarian Writers' Association president Béla Pomogáts in his laudation of Györgyey's 1997 compilation of essays entitled Szerelmetes szurkapiszka (Amorous Pestering).
 
In the introduction to Györgyey's book Arrogáns alázattal (In Humble Arrogance) her friend Marianna Birnbaum summarizes the author's work: "Clara Györgyey is not an emigree writer, she is a bilingual author of Hungarian extraction in the service of the literary cause. There is after all but a single literature, no more, and it is not national, but as indivisible as humanity itself."

 

Györgyey's memorial service will be held on 18 January at the Holy Infant Catholic Church of Orange.