Gabriele Gauler, the director of Budapest's Goethe Institute, presented the award to Tandori on Wednesday. Photo: Barnabás Honéczy (MTI)
The medal, which the institute has awarded each year since 1954, was officially presented to Tandori, along with Israeli pianist Daniel Barenboim and Korean theatre director Min Gi Kim, at a ceremony in Weimar, Goethe's home, on March 22, the anniversary of the great German author's death. However, Tandori was unable to attend and the award was accepted on his behalf by Hungary's ambassador to Germany Sándor Peisch.
On Wednesday, Gabriele Gauler, the director of Budapest's Goethe Institute, presented the award to Tandori in person in recognition of his "significant contribution to German-Hungarian literary dialogue."
The Hungarian writer György Konrád noted that Tandori's readers had "become a sect" believing that the writer could express anything with words.
Among the other Hungarian recipients of the Goethe medal are the Nobel Prize-winning author Imre Kertész and the late composer György Ligeti.
Tandori is also a recipient of the International Pen Club Prize, the Graves Prize, the József Attila Prize, the Áprily Prize, the Kassák Prize, the Weöres Prize and Hungary's highest award for artists, the Kossuth Prize.
