The Hungarian poet, writer, playwright and translator from Vojvodina, Otto Tolnai, is the recipient of the vilenica prize of the eponymous literary festival, which will take place this year between September 4 and 9. The poet Barbara Korun will be the Slovenian author in the center.
Otto Tolnai (1940, Kanjiža) is a member of the Hungarian ethnic minority in Serbian Vojvodina and is today considered one of the most important contemporary Hungarian authors. He studied Hungarian literature and philosophy in Novi Sad and Zagreb.
Experience Hungary’s intellectual heritageHis first poetry collection Homoru versek was published in 1963, and two years later he began writing for an avant-garde magazine founded at the time New Symposium. Later, he became its editor-in-chief and held this position until the magazine was banned in 1992. Tolnai received many awards and recognitions for his work.
Otto Tolnai’s art is permeated by openness, the sovereign freedom of passing between countries, landscapes, cultures and traditions. The power of his texts is best shown in the tiny scratches and cracks, into which the rich experience of Hungarian intellectual heritage and ex-Yugoslav culture and reality freely penetrates, a member of the jury wrote in the justification of the award. Jutka Rudaš.
Simultaneous connection with several culturesHis poetics “comes from the tradition of Hungarian culture, and its formation was strongly influenced by modern Yugoslav literary trends, so it is intercultural in nature, and its creative method shows a simultaneous connection with several cultures. In the background of his art of living is the deep hedonism of his ‘own’ culture,” can still be read in the justification.
This year, the Vilenica festival will be under the sign of the password The diverse face of Europethe Association of Slovenian Writers (DSP) also announced.
Source: Rtvslo
