George Szirtes

Born in Budapest in 1948, poet and artist George Szirtes came to England as a refugee, following the Hungarian Uprising in 1956.  His family settled in London and he trained as a painter in Leeds and London. His return visits to Hungary from 1984 onwards have resulted in a stream of translations into English.  George Szirtes became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1982 and has since won many awards for his work. He lives in Norfolk where he teaches Creative Writing at the Norwich School of Art and Design and the University of East Anglia. His latest poetry collection, Reel (2004), was awarded the 2004 T. S. Eliot Prize.

'I can't think of anyone but Louis MacNeice whose work has struck me as
having such a combination of sheer verbal energy, contemporary pertinence (...) imaginative elan and fertile, courageous strangeness.' Marilyn Hacker.

www.georgeszirtes.co.uk