Metropolitan Icons: Selected Poems of Janos Pilinszky in Hungarian and English

This is the first American selection of the work of Hungary's most distinguished postwar poet, János Pilinszky (1921-1981). This bilingual edition, comprising about one-third of Pilinszky's collected verse, represents all six of his major collections: Trapeze and Parallel Bars (1946), On the Third Day (1959), Metropolitan Icons (1970), Splinters (1972), Dénouement (1974), and Crater (1976). Among the poems chosen from Metropolitan Icons is a complete new translation of the dramatic recitative "KZ Oratorio". All of the Holocaust poetry as well as major, personally-attuned writing is also presented. The selection is preceded by a detailed Introduction, and closes with Notes on the Poems, many of which solve literary puzzles and make suggestions for further study. There is a bibliography of primary and selected secondary sources, including a list of Pilinszky's work available in English.