World Haiku Festival

PREFACE

In 2000, I met first a Hungarian japanologist, Dr. Judit Vihar, on the occasion of an international haiku event held in the United Kingdom. In the year 2007, my haiku collection MADARAK / BIRDS / 鳥

50 HAIKU, with her Hungarian translations, was published by Balassi Kiadó in Budapest. Later in 2010, she and I will co-organize an international haiku event named “World Haiku Festival Pecs 2010” in her country. Pecs is the crossroads of the West and the East, so has become one of European Capitals of Culture 2010.

From the 6 to the 8 August 2010 in Pecs, 41 haiku poets from 11 countries will gather to celebrate our international haiku festival. This fact points to the fact that haiku writing is fast becoming a new and indispensable genre for all of humanity in the 21^st century. Thanks to Dr. Judit Vihar, we can enjoy 310 haiku by 31 haiku poets attending our haiku festival in Pecs.

It will be a great fulfillment for every human being, when we can find such rich diversity and high quality of haiku poems there.

Fujimi, the 19 July 2010

Director & Co-founder, World Haiku Association

President, Ginyu Press

Professor at Meiji University

Ban’ya Natsuishi