Dr. Judit Vihar

I graduated from the Faculty of Humanities of ELTE in 1968, majoring in Hungarian-Russian-Japanese. During my university years, I started translating Japanese literary works under the influence of the famous musician and writer Hani Kjóko, which were regularly published in the then very popular magazine Nagyvilág. I was particularly interested in Japanese literature, but at the time there were few opportunities to do so. It was only after the change of regime that it was possible to work on Japanese literature. At that time I was awarded several scholarships, which gave me the opportunity to prepare my work A Short History of Japanese Literature, published in 1994. I have also taught at ELTE since 1975, where I was head of the Russian Department for 17 years, and at Károli University since 1996, where I still teach haiku poetry, Japanese literary history and literary translation. I was awarded the ELTE Pro Universitate.

I am the President of the Japan Studio Foundation and since 2001 I have been the President of the Hungarian-Japanese Friendship Society, and I also serve on the Board of Trustees of the Hani Foundation. In 2009, I received the Order of the Rising Sun with the Golden Rays and the Neck Ribbon from the Emperor. In 2010, I organized the World Haiku Festival Pécs in Pécs, which brought together haiku writers from all over the world. At my invitation, we have been organising the Hungarian Haiku Day every year since 2013. I have also prepared the Hungarian material for the World Haiku Encyclopedia, the most comprehensive online collection of haiku published in the USA.

I am the publisher and one of the editors of the Japanese-Hungarian Dictionary published in 2015, for which the editorial board was honoured by the Japanese Foreign Minister.In 2019 I was awarded the Janus Pannonius Literary Translator Award.
Major works.The Spirit of haiku, 1996; A Thousand Hungarian Haiku, 2010. I am a member of the World Haiku Association and chair its Hungarian chapter. My haiku are regularly included in the annual anthology of the association published in Tokyo in Hungarian, English and Japanese.

I have translated, among other works, the Nobel Prize-winning novel by Óe Kenzaburó, The Football Rebellion, and Macuo Basó’s poetry diary, On the Paths of the North.