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László Lator |
The award was presented by Jenő Lakatos, who heads the Hungarian Rotary Club, a service organisation, at Budapest's New York Palace on Thursday.
Novels, short stories and poems written in Hungarian and published in the twelve months to the end of June were eligible for the prize. The Single Opportunity was picked from a shortlist of works that demonstrated the highest literary quality and represented the spirit of Rotary, said Lakatos.
Lator was picked from the finalists by a jury chaired by the poet and writer Zoltán Sumonyi, who is also deputy head of the Hungarian P.E.N. Club. The board also included the Hungarian poet and Cambridge professor György Gömöri, and the literary historian and Szeged University professor Mihály Ilia.
More than 30 works were nominated for the prize, a number which was narrowed to three in two rounds. The other two finalists, in addition to Lator, were Gábor Schein, who was nominated for Tower of Fools, and Pál Závada for the novel Our Alien Body.
Lator, who is 81 years old, noted at the award ceremony that he had worked in the New York Palace decades earlier, for the publisher Európa, working to introduce world literature to Hungarian readers.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
Photo: Soros.hu
