Literature

Final Matters: Selected Poems, 2004-2010

    Translated by
  • Ottilie Mulzet

An award-winning translator presents selections from the haunting final volumes of a leading voice in contemporary Hungarian poetry

Hardcover

Price:
$58.00/£48.00
ISBN:
Published:
Feb 5, 2019
2019
Pages:
200
Size:
6.12 x 9.25 in.
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Szilárd Borbély, one of the most celebrated writers to emerge from post-Communist Hungary, received numerous literary awards in his native country. In this volume, acclaimed translator Ottilie Mulzet reveals the full range and force of Borbély’s verse by bringing together generous selections from his last two books, Final Matters and To the Body. The original Hungarian text is set on pages facing the English translations, and the book also features an afterword by Mulzet that places the poems in literary, historical, and biographical context.

Restless, curious, learned, and alert, Borbély weaves into his work an unlikely mix of Hungarian folk songs, Christian and Jewish hymns, classical myths, police reports, and unsettling accounts of abortions. In her afterword, Mulzet calls this collection “a blasphemous and fragmentary prayer book … that challenges us to rethink the boundaries of victimhood, culpability, and our own religious and cultural definitions.”

Poems from Szilárd Borbély's Final Matters


Awards and Recognition

  • Finalist for the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, PEN America
  • Ottilie Mulzet, Winner of the Tibor Déry Prize, Tibor Déry Foundation