As part of a programme run by Libri Bookshops and Jelenkor Publishing to promote reading, young people will have the opportunity to discover the poetry of András Visky this year. Ten thousand copies of the anthology entitled Vissza a nyomokon (Back on the Tracks) have been published, and a limited number of copies are still available: students can pick them up free of charge at any Libri store in the country. According to András Visky, reading contemporary poetry refreshes the body with linguistic vitamins – he recommends daily consumption.
CONTEMPORARY POETRY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE – FREE OF CHARGE
As a committed supporter of culture, Libri considers it one of its main tasks to ensure that the younger generation becomes familiar with and develops a love for the most significant works of contemporary Hungarian literature. To this end, some 50,000 gift books have been made available to students free of charge in the past few years.
Following the works of Miklós Mészöly, Ágnes Nemes Nagy, Péter Nádas, Szilárd Borbély, and János Térey, this year students will have the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the poetic works of András Visky, a Transylvanian Hungarian writer, playwright, and dramaturge who has been awarded the József Attila Prize and the Kossuth Prize. The volume entitled Vissza a nyomokon (Back on the Tracks), a selection of poems by András Visky, is available at Libri stores nationwide upon presentation of a student ID card.
Every year, Libri aims to bring high-quality contemporary Hungarian literature within reach of students and make it a widely accessible personal experience. The bookstore chain plays a key role in this: every Libri store in the country offers young people the opportunity to encounter living literature in this form—not only as reading material, but as a cultural experience that invites dialogue and stimulates thought.
András Visky was born in Marosvásárhely in 1957. His father was a respected Reformed pastor who was imprisoned during the reprisals following the 1956 revolution, while two-year-old András was deported with his mother and six siblings to the Bărăgan Plain in Romania. The writer’s childhood experiences are reflected in several of his works. His novel Kitelepítés (Deportation) is one of the most widely read works of fiction in recent years. It received the Margó Prize in 2023 and won the Libri Literary Prize in 2024 for the most popular work of fiction beyond Hungary’s borders.
András Visky himself said the following about the importance of contemporary poetry for young readers: “Poetry explores the limits of language, which is why we read contemporary poetry every day. That’s what I do. It’s like refreshing our bodies with linguistic vitamins, making us more resilient. […] Contemporary poetry refines our hearing. It makes us sensitive to the suffering of others, but also to their joy. It teaches us to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. It helps our humanity to explore its own richness.”
“Contemporary works have a special impact on us; we are not consumers of books, but rather, by reading them, we can participate in a shared creative process. In a nice conversation about who we are. Good literature convinces us that at birth we accepted an invitation that called us into the world. Our presence here is not a coincidence; we are all part of a large-scale composition. Let’s add our own freedom to that, since no one else can do it for us. Contemporary literature teaches us to rejoice. To find joy in who we are.”
Vissza a nyomokon (Back on the Tracks) is available at all Libri stores while supplies last. More information can be found here.
