Poetry
Harmadnapon
Not translated into English
János Pilinszky · 1959
Synopsis
Two cycles of poems, often very short. The first, “Senkiföldjén”, revolves around sin, abandonment and emptiness; the second, “Egy KZ-láger falára”, returns to the camps of the Second World War: an escaped French prisoner, “Harbach 1944”, an inmate of Ravensbrück at the moment of his death. The vocabulary is that of the Passion. In “Apokrif”, a long piece that takes up the parable of the prodigal son in the language of the apocalypse, man remains alone before the silence of God.
Context
The author's first collection had appeared in 1946; reduced to silence during the first half of the fifties, he could only bring out this one in September 1959, from Szépirodalmi, in a thousand copies. An official demanded that he add poems of a more serene tone; the title poem, on resurrection beyond the camps, was itself received as a mark of optimism. The book gathers poems written during the period that critics regard as the most barren in Hungarian literature, from 1947 to 1957.
Who it is for
A slim collection of short poems, which can be read in an hour; the author is translated into French and English through selections of poems, not volume by volume.
Prizes and reception
Regarded by critics as a masterpiece of twentieth-century Hungarian and European poetry.
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