Family Secrets and Personal Narratives: The Restless Hungarian

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The Restless Hungarian (2019) tells the story of Paul Weidlinger, a renowned structural engineer whose life intersected with the Hungarian Jewish diaspora, Modernism, and the Cold War. Written by his son, Tom Weidlinger, the memoir grew from a box of Paul’s belongings, left untouched for years. Opening it revealed a man shaped by loss, secrecy, and reinvention. Paul concealed his Jewish heritage upon arriving in the U.S. in 1943, a decision that sent Tom on a journey across continents to uncover the truth about his father’s identity and the events that defined his life. Paul’s life was filled with contradictions: a Holocaust survivor who denied his Jewishness, a Communist designing weapons silos, and a husband navigating the shadows of mental illness. These revelations transformed Tom’s understanding of his father, linking scattered memories into a cohesive narrative and fostering empathy for the complexities he faced. In addition to the memoir, a documentary film of the same name (2023) deepens this story through visual and emotional dimensions. In my presentation, I will discuss both the book and the film, situating them within the broader context of family secrets and autobiographical storytelling, given recent groundbreaking developments in genetic genealogy. This context illuminates how science and storytelling intersect to uncover hidden family histories and redefine personal identities.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Helga Lenart-Cheng (PhD, Harvard University, Comparative Literature) is Full Professor at Saint Mary’s College of California. Her research focuses on genetic genealogy, algorithmic storytelling, critical media studies, theories of narrative, subjectivity, community and memory, phenomenological hermeneutics, and world literature. Her books include Lénárd Sándor: Világok vándora (Alexander Lenard: Wanderer of Worlds, co-authored with Zsuzsa Vajdovics, 2016), Story Revolutions: Collective Narratives from the Enlightenment to the Digital Age (University of Virginia Press, 2022), Un/Bound, an edited collection of essays on borders, mobility and the ethics of cross-border storytelling (Routledge, 2024) and Life Writing as World Literature (Bloomsbury, May 2025).