Suffering, Trauma, and Death in Anna Terék’s Poetry Book Halott nők [Dead Women]

Abstract

Abstract Anna Terék is one of the most interesting Hungarian poets of the young generation. The study is focused on Terék’s third poetry book, Halott nők (Dead Women) (2017). The book is a poetry cycle that shows stories/voices of five women. Violence, physical as well as psychological and symbolic, becomes destructive to the identity of the individual but also to the identity of the community. At the same time, it demands an effort of expression. The paper analyses these issues. The study describes the speech / narrative forms and their functions, and it examines the system of metaphors and the specific poetic language. The poems are closely related to the Yugoslav Wars. The study refers to this historical background but also shows the poems’ universal dimension, which makes it possible to speak about them in terms of the life stories of today.