Solitude alumna Kinga Tóth received the KELAG Prize as part of the 2026 Ingeborg Bachmann Prize

Congratulations to Solitude alumna Kinga Tóth on being awarded the KELAG Prize, which is presented each year as part of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize.

Kinga Tóth, born in 1983 in Sárvár, Hungary, is a writer, visual artist, sound poet, performer, linguist, and translator. She writes in Hungarian, German, and English, and presents her work through performances, exhibitions, international installations, and at festivals. In 2013, she was awarded a fellowship at the Akademie Schloss Solitude as part of the Eastern European Network Exchange Program (now the Solitude Exchange Network). In 2014, Edition Solitude published Tóth’s poetry collection Allmaschine. It is available through bookstores or directly from the Akademie Schloss Solitude (ISBN 978-3-937158-80-8).

Her current text, OstblockMädl (Eastern Bloc Girl), tells the story of Hungarian women and the poor treatment they experience while working in Austria – whether in the fields or in inns, at the hands of farmers as well as guests. It portrays women living and working across borders – not only between countries, but also between two different worlds.

The jury of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize was deeply impressed by the text’s intricate weaving together of the familiar and the unfamiliar, by the striking imagery created through Tóth’s language, and by her distinctive, almost musical delivery. The work also resonated on a political level: in a poetic way, it captures the tensions between Eastern and Western Europe during the 1980s and 1990s. Through her innovative use of language, Kinga Tóth succeeds in bringing historical experiences into the present.

Brigitte Schwens-Harrant, who invited Kinga Tóth to participate in the competition, is convinced: »Anyone who has heard or read her voice once will never forget it.«

 

Her text OstblockMädl can be read here.

You can find further information here: https://bachmannpreis.orf.at