Random Walk gathers modern Hungarian verse translated by Peter V. Czipott and the late John Ridland, and edited by Johanna Domokos. Its title, borrowed from Czipott's earlier life as a physicist, names the chance-driven path by which the poems were found, through encounters, commissions and recommendations rather than any canonising scheme. Spanning the twentieth century into the present, it sets established figures beside lesser-translated contemporaries, moving through the rupture of Trianon, the 1956 revolt, imprisonment and exile, the Hungarian language itself, and quieter philosophical and devotional registers. The forms range widely, from rhymed sonnets and a heroic crown to aphoristic miniatures and free verse spread across the page. Dedicated to Ridland, who worked on it to within weeks of his death, it offers itself as a record of encounter rather than an authoritative survey.
 
Poets included:
György Faludy, Gyula Juhász, László Tompa, Sándor Reményik, Sándor Sík, László Mécs, Dezső Győry, Milán Füst, Antal Szerb, Zoltán Zelk, Attila Gérecz, Gyula Illyés, Lőrinc Szabó, Ferenc Bartis, Sándor Márai, Ferenc Buda, János Oláh, Sándor Lezsák, Károly Jung, Sándor Gál, István Ágh, Anna Jókai, György Gyékényesi, Sándor Weöres, László Vári Fábián, Emese Egyed, Lajos Zsélyi Nagy, Árpád Farka, Géza Szőcs, Tibor Zalán, Gábor Tompa, G. András Villányi, Attila Jász, Gyöngyi Hegedűs, Barnabás Dukay, Johanna Domokos, Attila Hegyi-Botos, László Koppány Csáji, Tamás Halmai, Balázs Lázár, Laura Iancu, Laura Turai, Béla Markó.
 
ABOUT Peter V. Czipott, John M. Ridland, and Johanna Domokos:
Peter V. Czipott (1954 –), born in California to Hungarian émigré parents, obtained his Ph.D. in physics and made a career in R&D. He began translating poetry with John Ridland in 2002 and continues on his own. His latest volume, Inebriate of Dawn, comprises selected poems by Dezső Kosztolányi, including some of the final fruits of his collaboration with Ridland. He has received the Hungarian Gold Cross of Merit (2020) and the Bálint Balassi Memorial Sword (2023) for his literary efforts.
 
London-born John M. Ridland (1933 – 2020) lived most of his life in California, for over four decades a professor of creative writing and literature at the University of California in Santa Barbara. He published eleven volumes of original verse, and translations from the Middle English (Gawain and the Green Knight; Pearl) and Hungarian (Petőfi’s John the Valiant) in addition to volumes of selected verse of Márai and Radnóti with Peter Czipott. He received the Bálint Balassi Memorial Sword in 2010.
 
Johanna Domokos (1970 –) is a poet and comparative literary scholar of indigenous cultures and minority literatures with expertise in Scandinavian and Central European areas (especially Sámi, Finnish, German and Hungarian). She has published 13 volumes of poetry to date, edited more than 20 scholarly volumes and authored four monographs. Affiliated with the University of Bielefeld in Germany and the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest, she is also an external member of the Hungarian Academy of Science.