Pestiside Staff: Mark Griffith

Pestiside Contributing Editor Mark Griffith is a Budapest-based journalist and translator. The author of several important Pestiside scoops - for example, our investigation of the illiquid domestic floatation tank industry, and our occassional "Magyar Magic" language series - his writing has appeared in titles ranging from Forbes (New York) to the Oil and Gas Journal (Tulsa & Houston), not to mention De Morgen (Brussels), An Nahar (Beirut), and Playboy Russia (Moscow).

He has worked as editor of WHERE Budapest magazine, and with a certain amount of struggle translated Zsuzsa Beney's baffling book of poetic essays Between Words and Silence into English. He says he is especially interested in increasing the number of engineering texts he translates, having a strong desire to work with subjects more "solid" and "load-bearing" than politics or culture.

Griffith recently appeared in the documentary "A Café in the Sky," playing Rezső Seress, the Hungarian composer of the famous suicide anthem "Gloomy Sunday." (The picture above is a still from the film featuring Mark and Hungarian model/actress - and retired Pestiside muse - Zita Görög.) A native of Manchester, he graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in economics and philosophy, and began his professional life as a pit trader on the futures floor at LIFFE in London.

Aside from languages, his interests include contemporary art and religion, and maintaining the daily weblog otherlanguages.org. Despite his recent foray into acting, Griffith is naturally shy, and can best be reached via email at markgriffith@yahoo.com, or by SMS on +3620 586-4479.