Book description
George Szirtes came to Britain as an eight-year-old refugee after
the Hungarian uprising in 1956. Educated in England, he trained as a
painter, and has always written in English. This comprehensive
retrospective of his work covers poetry from over a dozen collections
written over four decades, with a substantial gathering of new poems.
It was published on his 60th birthday in 2008 at the same time as the
first critical study of his work, "Reading George Szirtes"
by John Sears. Haunted by his family's knowledge and experience of
war, occupation and the Holocaust, as well as by loss, danger and
exile, all of Szirtes' poetry covers universal themes: love, desire
and illusion; loyalty and betrayal; history, art and memory; humanity
and truth. Throughout his work there is a conflict between two states
of mind, the possibility of happiness and apprehension of disaster.
These are played out especially in his celebrated
long poems and
extended sequences, "The Photographer in Winter",
"Metro", "The
Courtyards", "An English
Apocalypse" and "Reel", all included here.
