Background
She was born Ágnes Guttmann in Endrőd, a village on the Great Hungarian Plain. Her father died in the Holocaust.
She was born Ágnes Guttmann in Endrőd, a village on the Great Hungarian Plain. Her father died in the Holocaust.
She began work in a factory in 1950 but later went on to study Hungarian and English literature at the University of Budapest. She taught secondary school, was a radio producer and was feature editor for the weekly literary magazine Nagyvilág. From 1973 to 1974, Gergely took part in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.
She also has translated English and American works into Hungarian and has lectured on English literature at Eötvös Loránd University.
In 1963, she published her first poetry collection Ajtófélfámon jel vagy (Sign on my door jamb). She published her first novel A tolmács (The interpreter) in 1973.