Laura Iancu

Laura Iancu

LAURA IANCU (Podu Turcului, Romania, 1978) is a Hungarian poet and ethnographer. She received her degree in ethnography from the University of Szeged and her PhD from the University of Pécs in 2009. Since 2011 she has been a research fellow at the Institute of Ethnology at the Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Her main field of research includes the Hungarian-speaking Csango minority, its folklore, religion and traditions. She has been publishing prose and poetry since 2000. Ms Iancu received the József Attila Prize in 2012 and the Jankó János Prize in 2013. She is an active member of numerous organisations, such as the Hungarian Writers’ Association, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Transylvanian Hungarian Writers’ League.

SIX POEMS

My paternal grandmother served as assistant choir leader – a precentress, no less – in our village church. My father was the youngest of her eleven sons, and thus heir to the family home. I and my five siblings lived in the same house and the same backyard with her.