Description
Ágnes Nemes Nagy (b. Budapest, 3 January 1922 – d. Budapest, 23 August 1991) Nemes Nagy was a Kossuth and József Attila Prize winning poet, translator, essayist, who started writing poetry as a student. Her work was published in periodicals starting from 1945. The first volume of her poetry appeared in 1946, entitled Kettős világban (In a dual world), for which she was awarded the Baumgarten Prize.With her husband, writer and critic Balázs Lengyel, she founded the literary magazine Újhold (New Moon) in 1946, which brought together Hungary’s new generation of writers and was conceived of as the intellectual continuation of the seminal literary journal Nyugat (The west). The magazine was banned in 1948, and most of the authors were driven out of the field, but remained in contact with each other, regularly meeting at her flat for literary discussions. Nemes Nagy then worked as a teacher and later as a freelance writer, but was essentially only allowed to publish as a translator and author of children’s. Her second volume of poetry, Szárazvillám (Heat lightning), appeared in 1957, with the third work, Napforduló (Solstice), coming in 1967. Her iconic poem entitled Szobrokat vittem (Statues I carried) was published as part of the cycle Között (Between) at the start of the latter. In addition to poetry, she was also an important essayist, continuing the tradition of Mihály Babits and following in the footsteps of Gábor Halász and Antal Szerb. She redefined the contemporary interpretation of Babits’ poetic legacy. In 1997, she and her husband were honoured by Yad Vashem as “Righteous Among the Nations” for her life-saving activities during the Second World War. She has been a posthumous member of the Digital Literary Academy since 1998.
