Solstice
Solstice is the third volume of poetry written by Ágnes Nemes Nagy. It is built up of four parts: the poem cycles Between, Singing voice and Ehnaton as well as the dialogic narrative poem titled House on the hillside. The volume’s title indicates that the author herself interpreted it as a kind of turn. Mythical and folk beliefs related to solstice and equinox appear in many of her poems: for example, in the opening poem called Trees, in Pine or in The storm.
Ágnes Nemes Nagy (1922 – 1991) was a Hungarian poet, writer, educator, and translator.
She was born in Budapest and earned a teaching diploma from the University of Budapest. From 1945 to 1953, she was employed by the education journal Köznevelés; from 1953 to 1957, she taught high school. After 1957, she devoted herself to writing.
Following World War II Nemes Nagy worked on a literary periodical Újhold (New Moon); the editor was critic Balázs Lengyel, who she later married. The magazine was eventually banned by the government of the time. In 1946, Nemes Nagy published her first volume of poetry Kettős világban (In a dual world). In 1948, she was awarded the Baumgarten Prize. During the 1950s, her own work was suppressed and she worked as a translator, translating the works of Molière, Racine, Corneille, Bertolt Brecht and others.