Esterhazy, Peter

Writer

Péter Esterházy was born in 1950 in Budapest. He completed his secondary school studies in Budapest at the Piarist School and obtained a degree in mathematics from Eötvös Lóránd University in 1974. He began working at the Computer Technology Institute of the Ministry of Heavy Industry and Engineering. His first collection of short stories, "Fancsikó és Pinta" was published in 1976. In 1978 he left the ministry and he has been working as freelance writer since. In the 1970's and 80's he was one of the most important members of the so-called new-prose movement with his short stories and novels. Internationally, he is one of the most widely recognised contemporary Hungarian writers today. His works have been translated into more than twenty languages and he has received many important international awards such as the Vilenica award for Central-European writers, the award of the Roman Literary Festival, the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the Björnson Award, and the Austrian State Award for European Literature, the Herder Award. . In Hungary, several hundred reviews of his works have been published and he has been awarded, among other prizes, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Soros Foundation, the Kossuth Award, and the Hungarian Literary Award. He is a member of the Széchenyi Literary and Arts Academy, the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung, the Académie Européenne des Sciences, des Arts et des Lettres and the Akademie der Künste. He lives in Budapest with his wife and four children.

From the Miraculous Life of Words