Attila Jozsef by Thomas Kabdebo (Cardinal Press, Maynooth, no price given)

Attila (in Hungarian, family names come first) was a noted Magyar poet who died in the 1930s, after a short life of bohemian wildness and constant wanderings. From a working-class background, almost inevitably he tended towards Marxism but would probably have been in trouble with any Communist regime had he lived long enough. This "critical biography" depicts a sensitive, erratic, wryly humorous and virtually self-doomed man who nevertheless had a devotion to his craft and a deep awareness of his vocation. The occasional translations of his poetry suggest a fresh, idiosyncratic, entirely Modernist voice with a folk underlay.