(born in Budapest, 1969) has had his first, prizewinning play stag‚ed at one of Hungary's most celebrated theaters; this play ,The Shooting Party, won a drama competition on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian revolution. His novel, Linesman Marton is Cold (Budapest, 1995) received the 1995 Sandor Brody Prize for Best First Book in Hungarian literature. His translations cover a range of contemporary works: the poems of Derek Walcott, Charles Simic; fiction by John Berendt, Richard Preston (The Hot Zone), and Stephen King; plays by Caryl Churchill and Thomas Middleton. Mr. Hamvai holds the MA in English literature and linguistics from Elte University, and did a year of graduate research at Oxford. He is currently editor of a literary periodical at the Eotvos Kollegium and of a journal of linguistic studies at Elte University. He was appointed to the program by the US Information Agency.