Lazslo VEGEL

08 May Lazslo VEGEL

Lazslo VEGEL (Végel László), prose writer and playwright, essayist and critic, was born in 1941 in Srbobran. He studied Hungarian language and literature at the University of Novi Sad and philosophy at the University of Belgrade. He was a journalist, working for the magazines Új Symposion and Polja from Novi Sad, and Prolog from Zagreb; he was the chief editor of Tribine mladih in Novi Sad; the editor of the Saturday’s supplement of the magazine Magyar Szó (1971-1980); dramatist at the TV Novi Sad (1980, fired 1992); resident theatre critic in Politika; the coordinator of the Novi Sad office of the Open Society Foundation (1994-2002). He is a member of the Association of Writers of Vojvodina, The Literary Society (Budapest), Serbian PEN Centre and the Association of Hungarian Journalists.

His awards: Mladost (for the novel Memoirs of a Pimp) (1969); the City of Novi Sad October Award, an award for overall literary work (1988); Ady Endre (for overall literary achievement), (1993); Free Press (for the book of essays Renunciation and Survival),(1994); Déry Tibor (for prose writing)(1995); Jelenkor (for the book Exterritorium) (2000), Gold medal for the overall literary work, presented to him by the President of Hungary(2000), Book of the Year in Hungary (for Exterritorium),(2001); Füst Milan for literary work (2003) ; regional Pulitzer prize for Hungary – Budapest (2005), 1st February Prize of the city of Novi Sad (2005); the award for quality of the magazine Mozgo vilag (2008) ; Kossuth Prize (2009). In 2005 he received the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary.