Selected Poems Of Ágnes Nemes Nagy

This largest collection of Agnes Nemes Nagy’s poetry to appear in English brings to wider attention the finest Hungarian woman writer of the century. Fifty-seven poems are translated here, including eight prose poems, and the selection reflects her work from the late 1940s to the present. Intellectual passion, a cool eye for precise physical detail, an awareness of the crisis of modern civilisation and the responsibility of the individual—all these aspects of a rich poetic sensibility are represented here. The selection is prefaced by a lengthy essay by Ms Nemes Nagy herself, and concludes with a detailed commentary by her translator. The title is taken from her 1981 Collected Poems (Kozott).
AGNES NEMES NAGY: Born in Budapest in 1922, and educated at the University there. During the war she was involved in civilian resistance work, and immediately afterwards she became active in the literary group which published the journal New Moon (Uj Hold, 1946-1948). There followed years of public silence, though she continued to write. Her principal collections are: In a Dual World (1946), Dry Lightning (1957), Solstice (1967), and The Transformation of a Railway Station (1980). Recently she published two volumes of essays, 64 Swans (1975), and Segments (1982), and an extensive study of her precursor Mihaly Babits (1984). Ms Nemes Nagy won the Kossuth Prize in 1983 and has travelled widely in France, Germany, Great Britain and the United States.
HUGH MAXTON: Born in Dublin in 1947, he has published four collections of poems—the latest is At the Protestant Museum (1986)—and some fugitive pamphlets. His interest in the translation of Hungarian poetry dates from 1981, when he first visited the P.E.N. Club in Budapest. In 1984 he was elected to membership of Aosdana, the Irish academy of writers, musicians, and visual artists.