Loose Leaves SadhGeorge Szirtes, born in Budapest in 1948 but living in England since the age of eight, has won the 12th T S Eliot Prize 2004 for Poetry, worth £10,000, with his latest collection, Reel. Published by Bloodaxe last year, it was, said the chairman of the judging panel, Douglas Dunn, a "brilliantly virtuosic collection of deeply felt poems concerned with the personal impact of dislocations and betrayals of history".
Szirtes became well known to poetry lovers in Ireland during his time as the first international writer fellow at Trinity College, Dublin, in 2000, giving public lectures and readings, as well as teaching at the college. His readings were spellbinding, opening up to his audiences the extraordinary experience of his life; a Hungarian child transplanted to England, all the time learning and trying to come to terms with his past. His grandfather was gassed in Auschwitz; his father was an escapee from a labour camp. His mother, who spent three months in Ravensbrück, committed suicide 20 years after they came to England. "The whole time we lived in England she was detached. She was always an emigré. Even when we moved to a house with the perfect kitchen. She just sat there, disconnected," he told fellow poet Katie Donovan, in an interview in The Irish Times. Her death and a need to "shoulder some of her past" led him to a new relationship with Hungary. In recent years he has worked as a translator of Hungarian literature producing editions of such writers as Agnes Nemes Nagy, Otto Orban and Zsuzsa Rakovszky. He also co-edited Bloodaxes's Hungarian anthology, The Collonade of Teeth.
Often called the Booker of the poetry prize world, this year's award, which is run by the Poetry Book Society, even had its very own drama when one of the judges, Carol Rumens, withdrew because of concerns she had about eligibility criteria. Dunn and fellow judge Paul Farley subsequently agreed on a winner. Their citation also praised the unusual degree of formal pressure exerted by Szirtes on his themes of memory and the impossibility of forgetting.
Szirtes joins a roll call of past winners that includes Ted Hughes, Les Murray, Ciaran Carson, Paul Muldoon, Michael Longley and Anne Carson.
Magris, Lessing for Cork
Claudio Magris and Doris Lessing are among the line up of writers coming to Cork as part of Cork 2005 over the coming weeks. Under the tag Cork 2005 World Writing Series, the first event is on February 11th at 4 p.m. in the Trinity Presbyterian Church, Summer Hill North, during which Irish poet Nuala Ní Dhómhnaill will read with Kenyan novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o, author of A Grain of Wheat, his novel of the African liberation struggle. Dervla Murphy will read with Claudio Magris at same venue on 12th February (4 p.m.). Other paired readings will occur in the city in subsequent days featuring Greg Delaney and Seamus Heaney; Paula Meehan and Doris Lessing; and Paul Muldoon and Anthony Cronin.
Booking from Cork Opera House 021-427 0022 www.cork2005
Divine Dante
Nature and Art in Dante is the theme of this year's Dante Series, which are being held under the auspices of the Italian Department at University College, Dublin. The set of six public lectures kicks off on the 7th of next month and concludes on 4th April. Among the lecturers are Claudia Boscolo of UCD on Dante as late Gothic - The Artistry of Colour and Detail in the Comedy; Denys Turner of the University of Cambridge on Reason, Poetry and Theology: Dante and Thomas Aquinas Revisited. Marco Sonzogni, long resident here but who has recently taken up a post in the Italian Department of Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, returns to give a talk on The Nature of Love and the Art of Language: a Reading of Paradiso XXX111.
The series starts on February 7th. All lectures start at 7.30 p.m. and take place in Theatre N, Newman Building, UCD, Belfield, Dublin 4