Leading Hungarian poets to take part in StAnza, Scotland’s International Poetry Festival

Leading poets from Hungary will be among the big names from the literary world taking part in StAnza, Scotland’s International Poetry Festival in March. Mónika Ferencz, Balázs Szőllőssy and Krisztina Tóth will perform at the annual festival in the Scottish town of St Andrews in Fife.

StAnza: Scotland’s International Poetry Festival is held every March in St Andrews and runs one-off events throughout the year. The festival has as its hub, the Byre Theatre, and many of its events which are expected to exceed 100 next year are held in other venues around St Andrews, including the Town Hall and St Johns, a mediaeval undercroft.

Mónika Ferencz was born in March 1991 in Budapest. She has been publishing poems in different journals since 2013, and since 2015 has also published translations. She received the Mihály Babits Translators’ Grant in spring 2016, and participated in literary translation workshops organized by the Petőfi Literary Museum in Budapest (2016) and the Association of Young Writers (FISZ, 2017). Her first volume of poetry, Hátam mögött dél, was published in spring 2017.

Balázs Szőllőssy (1981) is a poet, editor and cultural organiser born in Budapest, Hungary. He is the member and was until recently board member of the Association of Young Writers in Hungary. His first book of poetry, Two Meanings of Freedom, was published in 2010, and his second, In Presso Viewpoint, is due early 2019. He is a member of several other NGOs and have been organizing a number of festivals, readings and cultural organizations in the past decade in the Hungarian cultural scene. He currently works as cultural attaché at the Hungarian Cultural Centre in Istanbul, Turkey.

Krisztina Tóth is one of the most highly acclaimed Hungarian writers. She is the winner of several awards, including the Graves Prize (1996), the József Attila Prize (2000) and the Laureate Prize, (2008), one of the highest recognitions in Hungarian literature. Her poems have strong connections with different Hungarian and European poetic traditions (she translates French poetry), and their trademark is a subtle combination of strong visual elements, intellectual reflection and a very empathic, yet often ironic concern with everyday scenes, conflicts and people. A writer engaged in the poetics of body, her work is often understood to be ‘ecriture feminine’. She is acknowledged as one of the best contemporary writers of central Europe. Krisztina Tóth lives in Budapest, and her poetry and prose have been translated into more than fifteen languages.