Born in Budapest in 1909, Radnóti began publishing his poems and translations while still a university student. By the late 1930’s, he had established himself as a major new voice in magyar poetry. His life ended in 1944 not far from the village of Abda, where, a short distance from the banks of the Rába, he was slain by his captors near the end of a forced march that had begun in the mountains of Serbia months before. Many of the poems included here were composed during his captivity in the labor campwhose name appears at the end of several eclogues and other poems.