“Yang Lian has successfully combined the forms of classical Chinese verse with Western avant-garde expressions,” Tamás Kemény, a poet and member of the international jury for the prize, said in a laudation.

Yang Lian, born in 1955, is associated with the Misty Poets group, who reacted against restrictions of free speech using the tools of poetry. The Janus Pannonius Grand Prize for Poetry was established by Géza Szőcs, the president of the Hungarian PEN Club, in 2012.

It comes with a 50,000 euro purse. This year’s prize was presented by state secretary for culture Péter Fekete.

MTI Photo: Sóki Tamás