Hungarian poet Gyorgy Faludy dies aged 95

Hungarian poet Gyorgy Faludy, a legend of resistance to the rise of Nazism and Communism, died at the age of 95 at his home in Budapest, national news agency MTI said yesterday.

The poet, known to many in the West as George Faludy, played a role in Hungary's 1956 anti-communist uprising and would have been a key speaker at a conference to celebrate its 50th anniversary later this month.

Faludy won international fame with his interpretation of François Villon ballads in the 1930s and his autobiographical novel My Happy Days in Hell in the 1960s, which related his escape from fascist Hungary and his return, and imprisonment, in a country under communist rule.

He fled Hungary twice: first in 1938, when as a Jew he was threatened by the growing power of Nazism, and the second time after Soviet tanks crushed the 1956 uprising.

Like fellow-Hungarian anti-communist writer Arthur Koestler, Faludy wandered the world, living in France, Algeria, the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy.

Toronto, where the poet, a former nominee for the Nobel prize for literature, lived for over 20 years, will inaugurate a George Faludy Park near the poet's former home on October 3.

Faludy returned to Hungary the second time at the end of the Eighties, following the collapse of communism in central Europe.