George Szirtes
Encyclopedia
George Szirtes Szirtes personal webpageis a Hungarian
-born British poet, writing in English, as well as a translator from the Hungarian language into English. He has lived in the United Kingdom for most of his life.
on 29 November 1948, Szirtes came to England as a refugee in 1956 aged 8. He was brought up in London and studied Fine Art in London and Leeds
.
His poems began appearing in national magazines in 1973 and his first book, The Slant Door, was published in 1979. It won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize
the following year.
He has won a variety of prizes for his work, most recently the 2004 T. S. Eliot Prize
, for his collection Reel and the Bess Hokin Prize for poems in Poetry magazine, 2008. His translations from Hungarian poetry, fiction and drama have also won numerous awards.
Szirtes lives in Wymondham
, Norfolk
, and teaches at the University of East Anglia
. He is married to the artist Clarissa Upchurch, with whom he ran The Starwheel Press and who has been responsible for most of his book jacket images. Her interest in the city of Budapest has led to over twenty years of exploration of the city, its streets, buildings and courtyards in paintings and drawings.
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
-born British poet, writing in English, as well as a translator from the Hungarian language into English. He has lived in the United Kingdom for most of his life.
Life
Born in BudapestBudapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
on 29 November 1948, Szirtes came to England as a refugee in 1956 aged 8. He was brought up in London and studied Fine Art in London and Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
.
His poems began appearing in national magazines in 1973 and his first book, The Slant Door, was published in 1979. It won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize
Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize
The Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize is a British literary prize established in 1963 in tribute to Geoffrey Faber, founder and first Chairman publisher Faber & Faber...
the following year.
He has won a variety of prizes for his work, most recently the 2004 T. S. Eliot Prize
T. S. Eliot Prize
The T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry is awarded by the Poetry Book Society to "the best collection of new verse in English first published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland" in any particular year. The Prize was inaugurated in 1993 in celebration of the Poetry Book Society's 40th birthday and in...
, for his collection Reel and the Bess Hokin Prize for poems in Poetry magazine, 2008. His translations from Hungarian poetry, fiction and drama have also won numerous awards.
Szirtes lives in Wymondham
Wymondham
Wymondham is a historic market town and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It lies 9.5 miles to the south west of the city of Norwich, on the A11 road to Thetford and London.- Before The Great Fire :...
, Norfolk
Norfolk
Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
, and teaches at the University of East Anglia
University of East Anglia
The University of East Anglia is a public research university based in Norwich, United Kingdom. It was established in 1963, and is a founder-member of the 1994 Group of research-intensive universities.-History:...
. He is married to the artist Clarissa Upchurch, with whom he ran The Starwheel Press and who has been responsible for most of his book jacket images. Her interest in the city of Budapest has led to over twenty years of exploration of the city, its streets, buildings and courtyards in paintings and drawings.
Prizes and Honours
- 1980 Faber Memorial Prize for The Slant Door
- 1982 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
- 1984 Arts Council Travelling Scholarship,
- 1986 Cholmondeley Prize
- 1990 Déry Prize for Translation The Tragedy of Man
- 1991 Gold Star of the Hungarian Republic
- 1992 Short listed for Whitbread Poetry Prize for Bridge Passages
- 1995 European Poetry Translation Prize for New Life
- 1996 Shortlisted for Aristeion Translation Prize New Life
- 1999 Sony Bronze Award, 1999 - for contribution to BBC Radio Three, Danube programmes
- 1999 Shortlisted for Weidenfeld Prize for The Adventures of Sindbad
- 2000 Shortlisted for Forward Prize Single Poem: Norfolk Fields
- 2002 George Cushing Prize for Anglo-Hungarian Cultural Relations
- 2002 Society of Authors Travelling Scholarship
- 2003 Leverhulme Research Fellowship
- 2004 Pro Cultura Hungarica medal
- 2005 T. S. Eliot PrizeT. S. Eliot PrizeThe T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry is awarded by the Poetry Book Society to "the best collection of new verse in English first published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland" in any particular year. The Prize was inaugurated in 1993 in celebration of the Poetry Book Society's 40th birthday and in...
, for Reel - 2005 Shortlisted for Weidenfeld Prize for the Night of Akhenaton
- 2005 Shortlisted for Popescu PrizePopescu PrizePopescu Prize is a bi-annual poetry award established in 1983. It is given by the Poetry Society for a volume of poetry translated from a European language into English. Formerly called the European Poetry Translation Prize the Prize was relaunched in 2003, and renamed in memory of the Romanian...
for The Night of Akhenaton - 2007 Laureate Prize, Days and Nights of Poetry Festival, Romania
- 2008 Bess Hokin Prize (USA) Poetry Foundation
- 2009 Shortlisted for T S Eliot Prize for The Burning of the Books and Other Poems
Poetry collections
- Poetry Introduction 4 with Craig RaineCraig RaineCraig Raine is an English poet and critic born in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, England. Along with Christopher Reid, he is the best-known exponent of Martian poetry.-Life:...
, Alan HollinghurstAlan HollinghurstAlan Hollinghurst is a British novelist, and winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize for The Line of Beauty.-Biography:Hollinghurst was born on 26 May 1954 in Stroud, Gloucestershire, the only child of James Hollinghurst, a bank manager, and his wife, Elizabeth...
, Alistair Elliott, Anne Cluysenaar and Cal Clothier (Faber, 1978) - The Slant Door (Secker & Warburg, 1979)
- November and May (Secker & Warburg, 1981)
- Short Wave (Secker & Warburg, 1984)
- The Photographer in Winter (Secker & Warburg, 1986)
- Metro (OUP, 1988)
- Bridge Passages (OUP, 1991)
- Blind Field (OUP September 1994)
- Selected Poems (OUP, 1996)
- The Red All Over Riddle Book (Faber, for children, 1997)
- Portrait of my Father in an English Landscape (OUP, 1998)
- The Budapest File (Bloodaxe, 2000)
- An English Apocalypse (Bloodaxe, 2001)
- A Modern Bestiary with artist Ana Maria Pacheco (Pratt Contemporary Art 2004)
- Reel (Bloodaxe, 2004)
- New and Collected Poems (Bloodaxe, 2008)
- Shuck, Hick, Tiffey - Three libretti for children, with Ken Crandell (Gatehouse, 2008)
- The Burning of the Books (Circle Press, 2008)
- The Burning of the Books and Other Poems (Bloodaxe, 2009)
Translation
- Imre Madách: The Tragedy of Man, verse play (Corvina / Puski 1989)
- Sándor Csoóri: Barbarian Prayer. Selected Poems. (part translator, Corvina 1989)
- István Vas: Through the Smoke. Selected Poems. (editor and part translator, Corvina, 1989)
- Dezsö Kosztolányi: Anna Édes. Novel. (Quartet, 1991)
- Ottó Orbán: The Blood of the Walsungs. Selected Poems. (editor and majority translator, Bloodaxe, 1993)
- Zsuzsa Rakovszky: New Life. Selected Poems. (editor and translator, OUP March, 1994)
- The Colonnade of Teeth: Twentieth Century Hungarian Poetry (anthology, co-editor and translator, Bloodaxe 1996)
- The Lost Rider: Hungarian Poetry 16-20th Century, an anthology, editor and chief translator (Corvina, 1998)
- Gyula Krúdy: The Adventures of Sindbad short stories (CEUP, 1999)
- László Krasznahorkai: The Melancholy of Resistance (Quartet, 1999)
- The Night of Akhenaton: Selected Poems of Ágnes Nemes Nagy (editor-translator, Bloodaxe 2003)
- Sándor Márai: Conversation in Bolzano (Knopf / Random House, 2004)
- László Krasznahorkai: War and War (New Directions, 2005)
- Sándor Márai: The Rebels (Knopf / Random House 2007; Vintage / Picador, 2008)
- Ferenc Karinthy: Metropole (Telegram, 2008
- Sándor Márai: Esther's Inheritance (Knopf / Random House, 2008)
As editor
- The Collected Poems of Freda Downie (Bloodaxe 1995)
- The Colonnade of Teeth: Modern Hungarian Poetry, co-edited with George Gömöri (Bloodaxe 1997)
- New Writing 10, Anthology of new writing co-edited with Penelope Lively (Picador 2001)
- An Island of Sound: Hungarian fiction and poetry at the point of change, co-edited with Miklós Vajda (Harvill 2004)
- New Order: Hungarian Poets of the Post-1989 Generation (Arc 2010)
Recordings
- The Poetry Quartets 6, with Moniza Alvi, Michael Donaghy and Anne Stevenson (Bloodaxe / British Council 2001)
- George Szirtes (Poetry Archive, 2006)
External links
- George Szirtes' website
- George Szirtes Blog
- Contemporary Writers
- Writers Artists
- Interview with John Tusa, BBC Radio 3
- George Szirtes T S Eliot Lecture, 2005
- Article in Hungarian Quarterly
- Article by Szirtes' on hidden Jewish roots in Habitus: A Diaspora Journal
- George Szirtes at The Poetry Archive
- Two Poems in Guernica MagazineGuernica MagazineGuernica / A Magazine of Art and Politics is a biweekly online site that publishes art and photography, fiction, and poetry, from around the world, along with nonfiction such as letters from abroad, investigative pieces and opinion pieces on international affairs and U.S. domestic policy...