George Szirtes is a Budapest-born poet who came to England as a refugee in 1956. His first book, The Slant Door was joint winner of the 1980 Faber Prize. He has published several books since that have brought him the Cholmondeley Award and the T S Eliot Prize for Reel (2004). His New and Collected Poems was published in 2008 and his most recent collection, The Burning of the Books and Other Poems, was also shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1982 and of the English Association in 2004.