I really am moved to the core. I am getting this prize, and I don't know for what I am getting it.
I came away from Hungary as a young student, and I had a winter coat on. In the left pocket was my volume of Radnóti. I came away and lived in Germany for a while, and whatever I did, I always thought that I must translate Radnóti and Hungarian poetry. I have carried that within myself, no matter what I have done. When I came to this country, I had studied many areas, and I have loved many authors. I have taught a number of each. I know a lot about novels and poetry of other people, and there was this Radnóti volume that I never forgot about.
Then I met Fred Turner one day in the mail room of The University of Texas at Dallas, and I told him, "You know, there was a great poet in Hungary. His name was Radnóti." "Yes," said Fred Turner, "I know him. It would be nice one day to translate him." And so we sat down together every week to translate Radnóti. Then the book came out, and after that I wrote a biography of Radnóti, and we have worked together on many translations since.
But somehow that translation of Radnóti is forever my most treasured work. It is somehow a way in which I learned to live in another country which has taught me to value the opportunity that I wouldn't have had in any other country in the world. I have translated Radnóti, and that is what will be with me forever, no matter what we do and no matter how wonderful other poets are that I am going to translate with Fred Turner. I don't think I deserve a prize for this. I think I have the greatest happiness in the world having achieved what I did.