George Szirtes
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George Szirtes is a renowned poet, translator and Goldsmiths alumnus who was awarded an honorary fellowship in 2014.
Poet, Royal Society of Literature Fellow and Goldsmiths alumnus George Szirtes came to England as a refugee when he was eight years old.
His poems have been published since the 1970s, with his first book winning the Faber Memorial Prize in 1980. Since then he has written many poetry collections, winning awards including the T S Eliot Prize (2005) for the book Reel.
He also works extensively as a translator and has received accolades for his translations too, including the 2013 Best Translated Book Award for his translation of László Krasznahorkai’s Satantango.
Szirtes was a judge for the 2017 Griffin Poetry Prize.
In an essay for Poetry magazine, Szirtes wrote that "rhyme can be unexpected salvation, the paper nurse that somehow, against all the odds, helps us stick the world together while all the time drawing attention to its own fabricated nature."