HUNLIT A Magyar Könyv Alapítvány Többnyelvű Irodalmi Adatbázisa

	Sándor CSOÓRI
	( 1930 )

1930 born in Zámoly
1953 poems first published in literary journals
1953-56 contributes to various newspapers and literary journals
1962-63 works as a journalist
1981 wins Herder Prize
1988 co-editor of the literary and political journal Hitel
1991-2000 President of the World Association of Hungarians
1992 editor-in-chief of Hitel

Prizes
1954, 1970 Attila József Prize
1981 Herder Prize
1984 István Bibó Prize
1985, 1995, 2004 Prize for the Book of the Year
1987 Tibor Déry Award
1989 József Fitz Prize
1990 Kossuth Prize
1990 Prize of Excellence awarded by the Magvető Publishing House
1990 Main Prize for Poetry at the Radnóti Biennial
1995 Eeva Joenpelto Prize
1997 Gáspár Károli Prize
1997 Hungarian Heritage Title
2000 Cross with Star Order of the Hungarian Republic
2004 Prize for the Hungarian Art
2005 Hungarian Heritage Title
2006 Bálint Balassi Memorial Sword Award
2008 Prima Primissima Prize

1954 A Bird Takes Flight
1963 Report from the Tower
1969 From Wall to Wall
1973 A Dialogue in the Dark
1980 Rain of Mud

LINKS

to read in Hungarian

1954 Felröppen a madár (A Bird Takes Flight; poems)
1957 Ördögpille (Devil�s Moth; poems)
1962 Menekülés a magányból (Fleeing from Solitude; poems)
1963 Tudósítás a toronyból (Report from the Tower; essay)
1965 Kubai napló (A Diary from Cuba; travelogue)
1965 (1980) Iszapeső (Rain of Mud; documentary novel)
1966 A költő és a majompofa (The Poet and the Monkeyface; essays)
1967 Második születésem (My Second Birth; poems)
1969 Faltól falig (From Wall to Wall; essays)
1969 Lekvárcirkusz bohócai (Clowns of the Jelly Circus; poems for children)
1973 Párbeszéd a sötétben (Dialogue in the Dark; poems)
1974 Utazás félálomban (A Travel in Slumber; essays)
1976 Sose harmadnapon (Never on the Third Day; poems)
1977 A látogató emlékei (Memories of the Visitor; poems)
1979 Jóslás a te idődről (Prophecy of Your Time; poems)
1979 Nomád napló (Nomadic Diary; short stories, essays)
1980 A tizedik este (The Tenth Night; poems)
1981 Tenger és diólevél (Sea and Nut Leaf; poems, essays, lectures)
1981 Készülődés a számadásra (Preparations for Reckoning; essay)
1981 A magyar apokalipszis � Töprengés a második magyar hadsereg összeomlásáról ( The Hungarian Apocalypse � A Rumination on the Collapse of the Second Hungarian Army; essay)
1982 A félig bevallott élet (A Life Half Admitted; essays)
1982 Tenger és diólevél & Egykor elindula tizenkét kőmíves (Sea and Nut Leaf & Once Twelve Masons were Leaving; essays)
1982 Elmaradt lázálom (Nightmare Cancelled; poems)
1982 Pergőtűz (Drumfire; film script)
1983 Várakozás a tavaszban (Waiting in the Spring; selected poems)
1985 Kezemben zöld ág (A Budding Twig in My Hand; poems)
1987 Készülődés a számadásra (Preparations for Reckoning; essays)
1987 Lábon járó verőfény (Walking Sunshine; poems for children)
1988 Csoóri Sándor Breviárium (Sándor Csoóri's Breviary; an ample collection of his works)
1989 A világ emlékművei (Memorials of the World; poems)
1990 Esztergomi töredékek (Fragments from Esztergom; poems, photoes, documents)
1990 Virágvasárnap (Palm Sunday; selected poems)
1991 Nappali hold (Daytime Moon; poems)
1993 Senkid, barátod (Noone, Your Friend; selected poems)
1994 Tenger és diólevél I.-II. (Sea and Nut Leaf I.-II.; collected essays, journals, lectures 1961-94)
1994 Hattyúkkal, ágyútűzben (In Gunfire with Swans; poems)
1996 Ha volna életem (Life, if I Had One; poems)
1996 Feljegyzések hidegrázásos időbe (Notes to a Time of Shivering; poems)
1997 Szálla alá pokolra (Descending to Hell; essays)
1998 Csoóri Sándor válogatott versei (The Selected Poems of Sándor Csoóri)
2000 A jövő szökevénye (Fugitive from Future; collected poems)
2001 Csöndes tériszony (Silent Agoraphobia; poems)
2001 Forgácsok a földön (Chips on the Floor; essays, interviews, studies)
2003 Elveszett utak (Lost Ways; essays)
2004 Elkártyázott köpeny (Gown Gambled; selected poems)
2004 Visszanéztem félutamról ( Halfways I Looked Back; selected essays)
2005 Futás a ködben (Run in the Fog; poems)
2005 Ünnep a hegyen - vallomások a szülőföldről (Feast on the Hill � confessions on homeland)
2005 Hetvenöt (Seventy five; selected poems)
2006 Nekünk ilyen sors adatott (The Fate Bestowed on Us; poems, interviews, pohotoes)
2007 Tizenhét kő a parton (Seventeen stones on the shore; essays)

1954 A Bird Takes Flight (.)

Csoóri�s first volume of poems was praised by numerous critics for its confrontation with the worries of contemporary society, rather than just contemplation of society�s obligatory joys. Even at this early stage in his career, Csoóri�s own particular style�his objective descriptions and political-sociological attentiveness�appears. In a single poem, Csoóri strives to describe the universe in which sense of life may be found in one single word. Overall, the volume gives an early display of Csoóri�s peculiar mixture of personal confession and concern with politics. Csoóri once noted, �From the first there has been present in my work�in whichever genre�a general sense of unease about how to maintain the existence of the human personality in the world amid great campaigns of depersonalization.�

1963 Report from the Tower (.)

In the spirit of great Hungarian writers, Csoóri presents Hungarian peasant life�something not unknown to him�without, however, concealing the strife of the peasants in their attempt to adapt to the tyrannical institutions and demands of socialist farming.

Csoóri�s sociologically inspired writings serve as a standard for this genre yet today.

1969 From Wall to Wall (.)

“Weeping wall to wall...” This volume reveals Sándor Csoóri’s interest in ballads and folk songs. In his prose, as well as his poems, Csoóri experiments with the use of archaic language. At the same time, though, he is fully aware that a language’s constant formation, destruction and renewal are possibly the most important conditions for human interrelationships. According to Csoóri, “Language means continual construction and destruction; it establishes relationships between people, and it links cause and effect.”

1973 A Dialogue in the Dark (.)

The maturity of Csoóri’s style clearly shows as he highlights single words as well as larger structures of the poem, a method which makes the poems much more dramatic: “There is a whole world in each word—mountains, crevices, large uprooted forests.”

“Without sacrificing his poetry to propaganda, he has been able, by absorbing the social and political turmoil of his period into himself, to digest these turmoils and re-create them on a personal, artistic level which is completely authentic. His are the masterful words of a man who was there, the words of a daring witness.”

-Len Roberts, translator

1980 Rain of Mud (.)

Besides being a poet, essayist and writer of short stories and influential film scripts for Ferenc Kósa and Sándor Sára, Csoóri started writing prose as a part of his struggle to find modern and authentic ways of expression. His essays have greatly influenced both his readers and other writers in the genre. This book is a novella, a documentary approach to a Hungarian peasant family—a search for the answer to the suicide of a girl of twenty. In the course of the investigation, a world of poverty and barbaric cruelty unfolds, and none of the characters seem to be mature enough for a fight for their freedom.

Download contents in PDF!