Peter Hargitai

Approaching My Literature, Volume 2: Translations from the Hungarian Exilic Experience Peter Hargitai

Publisher Marketing: The two-volume compilation of readings in Hungarian exilic literature is a selective guide through the genres of a body of work that until recently was all but inaccessible to English readers, specialist and student alike. These voices from the other Europe add a unique and invaluable chord to our appreciation of global diversity by broadening the definition of exile beyond geographical dislocation to questions of identity provoked by political, cultural, psychological and spiritual displacement. "Volume Two: Translations from the Hungarian Exilic Experience" showcases award-winning English translations of two 20th Century Hungarian literary giants who were forced into a life of exile in their own country the poet Attila Jozsef (1905 1937) and the literary historian and novelist Antal Szerb (1901 1945) who was executed in 1945. Included in the volume is the work of Hungarian-American poet Ferenc Mozsi (1947 2007), the most innovative poet of his generation, who risked his life in a daring escape from communist Hungary only to have his poems suffer rejection in both mainstream America and in his native Hungary. Peter Hargitai is a Senior Lecturer in English at Florida International University. He has been teaching Writing, Rhetoric and Literature for four decades. As a poet, author and translator, he has garnered numerous literary awards including the Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Fust Milan Award from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and the Pro Cultura Hungarica Medal from the Republic of Hungary. He is a member of PEN (Writers in Exile).