He was born in Nagyvárad, Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Oradea, Romania) into Hungarian Jewish family.

[5] After high school, he worked as a newspaper writer in Paris, then in Oradea from 1900, and in Budapest from 1905.

After the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919, he was forced into emigration,[5] initially living in Austria, France, and Germany.

[6] In United Kingdom he worked as a scenario chief for London Film Productions run by Alexander Korda, collaborating on many screenplays with Arthur Wimperis.

In his tense short stories, he illustrates the contradictions of contemporary bourgeois morality.