My friend István Bart, who has died aged 74, translated into Hungarian and published the work of many leading British, Irish and American writers, poets and playwrights. He and I first met in 1973, through my friendship with the experimental writer BS Johnson, whose book The Unfortunates (1969) he added to his list. From this meeting I came to appreciate the value of the work he did as a sort of English-language cultural outpost in Hungary, of particular importance in the years up to the dismantling of the iron curtain in 1989.

Born in Budapest, István was the son of Ede Bart and his wife, Ilona (nee Gombás), who ran their own business making fur coats. From St Stephen high school he went to Eötvös Loránd University and graduated in English and Hungarian literature and language.

In 1971 he began working as a translator, two years later joining the Európa publishing house in Budapest. After translating William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, István moved on to other US authors including Henry Miller, Norman Mailer and Jonathan Franzen. From Britain there were Frederick Forsyth, Muriel Spark, John Berger, David Storey and Alan Sillitoe, and from Ireland Samuel Beckett, also introduced to him by Johnson. Among visitors for dinner were Philip Roth, EL Doctorow, Mervyn Jones and visiting expatriates – George Mikes, John Lukacs and the publisher André Deutsch. István was happy to introduce me and others new to Budapest to every aspect of the city’s cultural, business and political life.

As a publisher, he was a director of Corvina (1983-2004) and CEU Press (2001-11). He wrote well-received novels and more than two dozen cultural dictionaries – explaining in the case of Britain, for instance, the role of drinking tea and the significance of Guy Fawkes night. In 1973 he married Kinga Klaudy, a professor of applied linguistics and translation, and they collaborated on books on the discipline’s theory and practice.

In the 1980s and 90s István was the secretary general of the Hungarian PEN Club, and he was chairman of the Hungarian Booksellers’ and Publishers Association (1991-2008). He also co-founded MASZRE, a collecting society distributing rights payments to Hungarian authors and scholars.

He is survived by Kinga, their two sons, István László and Daniel, and four grandchildren.