István Vörös: Two poems, translated from Hungarian by Adam Piette and Ágnes Lehóczky
About this episode
This episode features readings of two poems by István Vörös, translated by Adam Piette and Ágnes Lehóczky, exploring themes of academia and nihilism.
Readings by Adam Piette and Ágnes Lehóczky. Read the translations of these poems on the Modern Poetry in Translation website: https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/poem/two-poems-12/ Translators Adam Piette and Ágnes Lehóczky write in the introduction: These poems are excerpts from The University Island (forthcoming from And Other Stories), a major work in progress by Hungarian poet István Vörös. The text functions less as a memoir than an anti-memoir—a powerful satire in free verse that chronicles three decades in the trenches of academia. The protagonist, a failed academic and poet, is a tragicomic figure in constant dialogue with his phantom companion, Hermes, the decipherer of the shapeshifting incomprehensible. This inner journey through the history of philosophical hermeneutics echoes the non-conformist souls of twentieth-century literature, reminiscent of Georg Büchner’s Lenz, Paul Celan’s posthumous phantoms, and the morose narrators of Thomas Bernhard. Vörös depicts the slow physical and psychological collapse of a ‘failed lecturer’ challenging a politicised, devalued system. It is a sobering critique of an institutional ‘madhouse’ where the academic becomes the very…
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