We begin our literary series in 2017 with what promises to be a memorable evening in the company of Ottó Tolnai, a magnificent poet and captivating personality from the old-fashioned spa town of Palić (Palics) in Vojvodina, the autonomous province of Serbia. Anyone who has heard this poet as he discusses his personal experience of such seemingly mundane topics as plaster, pure wheat flour, tin guttering, his immediate surroundings and local characters, both real and imagined, can hardly escape the magical effect of his poetry.
Tolnai, the legendary onetime editor-in-chief of the poetry review New Symposium, is the author several volumes of poetry which breathed new life into Hungarian literature, including The Countryside Orpheus (1983), The Wilhelm Songs (1992), The Árvacsáth (1992) and Balkan Laurel (2001), as well as memorable prose collections such as 3 Virág Street (1983), the Blue Sealing Globe (1994) and The Poet Made of Pig Fat (2004), based on radio interviews but written in a novelistic style with Lajos Parti Nagy. He is an autonomous, unclassifiable artist who has created a monumental private and personal mythology using the facts, objects, debris, legends, gossip and characters of the micro-world around him. This evening at the Festival Theatre promises to be an intellectual adventure, full of astounding surprises and unexpected events, as we take a glimpse at the workings of one of Hungarian literature's most exciting talents.

Presented by: Müpa Budapest