Sándor Kányádi 1929-2018

Poet and translator Sándor Kányádi has died at age 90. Kányádi was born in 1929 in Nagygalambfalva (today Porumbeni), in rural Transylvania. He moved to Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca) in 1950 where he completed his university studies and worked as a Hungarian language and literature teacher.

He started to publish poems in 1955 in literary and children’s magazines and also became active in political concerns related to the life of Hungarian minority in Transylvania.

Kányádi was widely respected and received several Hungarian awards, among them the Kossuth-Prize, Prima Primissima, and the Order of Merit. After retiring he spent his last years at his cottage in his beloved Transylvania. Many of his poems have been translated into other languages.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán praised and said goodbye to “the greatest poet” in a Facebook post. Kányádi was also a good friend of George Soros.

György Lázár

Kányádi (in the middle) with fellow Transylvanian Prof. Albert-László Barabási (left) and George Soros (right).

Orbán’s Facebook entry about Kányádi.

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