The Song of the Cosmos - Attila József Selected Poems - Book Launch and Conversation

Recording from the launch of The Song of the Cosmos – Attila József Selected Poems, at the Liszt Institute London. Ágnes Lehóczky and Adam Piette spent five years translating a significant selection of Attila József's poetry into English. Attila József was a modernist, socialist, working-class Hungarian poet who lived a poverty-stricken and unstable life, and died aged 32 at Balatonszárszó. His poetry is surrealist, existentialist, drenched in Hungarian folklore and folk song, and grounded in the concrete realities of the city and its underclass. This bilingual edition presents the poems chronologically, in Hungarian and English, with introductions and afterwords by Lehóczky, George Szirtes, György Tverdota, Aranka Kemény and Adam Piette. For this conversation, Lehóczky and Piette are joined by special guest George Szirtes. Born in Budapest, Szirtes arrived in England as a child refugee after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. He won the T.S. Eliot Prize for Reel, and is known for his translations of László Krasznahorkai, including Satantango and The Melancholy of Resistance. Follow us on social media to discover more about Hungarian culture and stay updated on our latest events! Facebook:   / hcclondon   Instagram:   / hungarian_culture_uk   TikTok:   / hungarian_culture_uk   Website: https://culture.hu/uk/london