Andrew (Andor) Fabinyi, son of Imre Fabinyi, lawyer, and his wife Margit, was educated at Minta Gymnasium and Pazmany University. After completing undergraduate studies he pursued postgraduate study in the psychology of aesthetics. He worked at Lauffer's Bookshop, Budapest, and in 1932 established an agency for the distribution of British books in Hungary. He travelled to Melbourne and was offered employment with the bookseller F. W. Cheshire. In May of 1940 he applied for permanent residence as Andrew Fabinyi and later that year he married a librarian Elisabeth Clare Robinson; they were to have five children.
He joined the Citizen Military Forces on 28 January 1942 and was posted to Albury, New South Wales. In October 1943 he transferred to the Army Education Service and by the end of the war was in charge of A.A.E. Libraries. He worked as General Manager and Director of F. W. Cheshire Publishing Pty Ltd and its subsidiaries for over twenty five years, becoming extremely influential in the literary community of Australia and in the marketing of Australian literature overseas. Using the pseudonym 'Peter Pica', Fabinyi contributed an influential critical column on the design of Australian books to the Australian Book Review.
He served on and chaired numerous committees and, in recognition of his contribution to the work of libraries, was given the Library Association of Australia's (L.A.A.) (Sir) Redmond Barry award in 1974. He also wrote Living in Cities and Social and Cultural Issues of Migration, both published in 1970, as well as Development of Australian Children's Book Publishing, published in 1971. In 1971-73 he was a member of U.N.E.S.C.O.'s advisory committee on documentation. In 1969 he became Managing Director of Pergamon Press (Australia) Pty Ltd. In 1975 he resigned as Managing Director and accepted a research fellowship at the University of New South Wales, where he hoped to complete a book on publishing.
He maintained his involvement in books as a director of La Trobe University Bookshop (1970-78) and Longman Cheshire (1977-78) and continued his international interests with U.N.E.S.C.O. and the Australian Institute of International Affairs (A.I.I.A.) until his death. (Source: Australian Dictionary of Biography online.)
