The poet was 64 years old.
András Ferenc Kovács, Transylvanian Hungarian poet, essayist, literary translator, playwright, and former editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Látó, died on December 30th, 2023 at the age of sixty-four, announced the editors of the Marosvásárhely newspaper.
András Kovács was born on July 17th, 1959 in Szatmárnémeti, and completed his high school studies in his hometown. He graduated from the local Kölcsey Ferenc High School in 1978. He completed his higher education at the Babes-Bolyai University (BBTE) in Cluj, and in 1984 he obtained a Hungarian-French teacher’s diploma. Between 1984 and 1989, he taught in places around Székelyudvarhely. From 1990, he was the editor and deputy editor-in-chief of the poetry section of the literary magazine Látó in Marosvásárhely, and between 2008 and 2019 he was the editor-in-chief.
He published poems from 1977 and children’s poems from 1981, and is the author of half a hundred volumes. His poems have been translated into several languages and in several versions. The leading figure of the fourth Forrás generation, an outstanding figure of contemporary Hungarian poetry. A poet with a virtuoso sense of form, many cultural and artistic references appear in his poems. He selected Marin Sorescu’s volume of poems titled Dazzle, Federico García Lorca’s Most Beautiful Poems.
MTI
Photo: MTI/Gyula Czimbal