Kossuth Prize-winning poet Sándor Kányádi has died at the age of 89.
The renowned author passed away in the early hours of Wednesday in Budapest and will be laid to rest in his native village in Szekler Land.
Born in Romania into a Szekler peasant family, Kányádi went to university in Cluj, graduating in 1954.
From an early age he wrote poems and worked for various periodicals. In the 1960s, his poetry focused on faithfulness to his ethnic Hungarian community and presenting the social conflicts of Ceausescu’s Romania.
Kányádi was honored with a number of awards, including the prestigious Kossuth Prize (1993), the Herder Prize 1994), and two Orders of Merit of Hungary: Middle Cross (2004) and Grand Cross (2009).