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| Szálinger Balázs |
The poet Katalin Mezey, who heads the Salvatore Quasimodo Foundation, presented the 32-year-old Attila József Prize-winner the award.
The poet Tamás Kabdebó was named the winner of the special prize in the contest.
The Bulcsú Bertha Prize, which recognises literary publicists, went to Elemér Balogh, László Bartusz-Dobosi, Tamás Kemény, Attila Kristóf and Majoros Sándor.
This year?s Quasimodo contest drew 564 entries from 282 authors, said László Cserép, cultural department head of the local council, which organises the prize. Entries were received from Hungarian authors living in Romania and Slovakia, as well as in Hungary, and one submission even came from a Hungarian poet living in Ireland, he added.
The Salvatore Quasimodo Poetry Competition is connected to an international cultural network; at the same time it establishing a ?fruit-bearing cooperation? between cultures is among its aims, said UNESCO Director of Division Division of Cultural Policies and Intercultural Dialogue Katerina Stenou. Fruit-bearing cooperation is about cultural diversity which produces new talent, new work and new thinking, she added.
The Quasimodo winners will be recognised at a gala event in Paris in Paris organised by UNESCO at the end of October, said Hungary?s UNESCO ambassador Katalin Bogyay.
Géza Szőcs, state secretary for culture at the National Resources Ministry, said Quasimodo may have been more proud of the results of the contest ? in its 18th year ? than he was of his Nobel Prize.
Szőcs himself was the recipient of the Quasimodo prize in 2000.
Quasimodo?s son, the actor Alessandro Quasimodo, and the Kossuth Prize-winning Hungarian actor Sándor Lukács recited Quasimodo?s poetry at the awards ceremony in Balatonfüred.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI) / Photo: Dániel Kováts
