Ferenc Bakos was born on January 28, 1946 in Jászladány. He completed his secondary education in 1964 at the Bláthy Ottó Electrical Engineering College in Miskolc, and received his diploma in high-current electrical engineering from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Budapest University of Technology in 1969.

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His first writing, a prose poem, was published in 1968 in Bercsényi 28–30. His first short story, entitled Spit Master , was published in 1970 in Élet és Irodalom. The writer, who started out as a narrator, was introduced and praised by Kortárs in 1972 under the pseudonym Péter Bakos. He is a member of the “Péterek” generation of writers. His one-minute pieces, short stories, and narratives were published in Élet és Irodalom, the Pozsony Új Szó, the Magyar Nemzet, the Alföld, the Életünk, and the Kortárs. His first volume was published in 1975 under the title Csonttollú madarak tele by the Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó. In 1976, he won the Móricz Zsigmond Scholarship. His absurd one-act play entitled The Mráz Family was published in Mozgó Világ. He writes plays at the request of the Pécs National Theatre, and later the Csiky Gergely Theatre in Kaposvár.

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From the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, he worked as a cathodic protection engineer in the oil fields of the deserts of Iraq, Kuwait, Libya and Egypt. This was when the Sinbad stories, the Sinbadias, were born, which were published in the columns of Élet és Irodalom, Kortárs, Magyar Nemzet, Új Írás, Új Tükör, Tekintet, Somogy, Siófok News, Hazánk and Életünk from 1984. His radio play Dew Falls on the Peony... , inspired by the Chinese Tao of Love, which achieved national success in 1988, was broadcast by Hungarian Radio for two and a half decades. His volume Sinbadia was published in 1993.

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He is a regular contributor to Somogy, the regional magazine, and has been publishing his haiku since 1982. In 1989, his haiku in English and Japanese was published in Japan, in The Mainichi Daily News . In 1990, he was a founder and the only Hungarian member of the Tokyo Haiku International Association . He is an external contributor to Nagyvilág, which publishes haiku translations. He regularly publishes in the Japanese HI (Haiku International) and Kó journals. His previous literary appearances are supplemented by the Pannon Tükör, Napút and Tempevölgy journals.

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He writes haiku, senryū, renku and haibun, essays on haiku, reviews. He is the creator of the apt word huika. In the 2010s, he was one of the hundred most creative haiku poets in Europe. His haikus are translated into countless languages, and they enrich the line of foreign anthologies. In 2011, he was an invited speaker at Meiji University in Tokyo, at the 6th International Haiku Festival and the 2nd Tokyo Poetry Festival. He is the author or co-author of several haiku volumes. His haiku book Desert Wind was also published in the United States in 2015.

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In 2025, he will receive the Hungarian Golden Cross of Merit, according to the diploma's justification: "in recognition of his five decades of creative work as the best-known Hungarian haiku author, with his poems and translations, in addition to popularizing the genre and form in Hungary, and deepening the relations between the Hungarian and Japanese nations."

 

(Source: Andrea Vajda: Szindbád and haijin on the shores of the Hungarian sea. Outline of the literary career of Ferenc Bakos. In: Zoltán Bognár (edited): Siófok Memories. Siófok, 2024. 614–640., 730–734.:382–479.)

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• Place and time of birth: Jászladány, January 28, 1946.
   

• Profession: writer, haiku poet, translator
   

• Works: Full of Bone-Plumed Birds (short story collection, 1975); The Mráz Family (drama, 1976); Tristan and Isolde (drama, 1976); The Messenger (audio play, 1980); Dew Falls on the Peony… Emperor Huang-ti's Meetings with His Advisors (audio play, 1988); Pécel – Paris (drama, 1988); Mata Hari (drama, 1988); Sinbad (novel, 1993); Haiku Trilogy: Centuries of Haiku, Rising Moon Shadow, Haiku Conquest (2000); New Millennium (haikus, 2006); Desert Wind (haiku collection, 2010); DesertWind (haiku collection, USA, 2015); Hidden Lake. Modern Japanese Haikus (edited by Kóko Kató, together with Judit Vihar, 2015)
   

• Awards: 2000– 5th International “Kusamakura” Haiku Competition, Kumamoto, Japan: Honorable Mention; 2002 – 56th BashoMemorial Haiku Contest, Iga, Japan: Honorable Mention; 2006 – 8th HIA Haiku Contest, Tokyo, Japan: Honorable Mention; 2007– Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival, Vancouver, Canada: Honorable Mention; 2009– 13th Mainichi Haiku Contest, Tokyo, Japan: 2nd Prize; 2009– 20th ITO ENOiOchaShinhaikuContest, Tokyo, Japan: Excellence Prize; 2010 – 14th MainichiHaiku Contest, Tokyo, Japan: Honorable Mention; 2010–WorldHaiku Festival, Pécs: 2nd Prize; 2012 – Fujisan Haiku Contest, Yamanashi, Japan: Honorable Award; 2013– 4th Japan–EU English Haiku Contest, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tokyo, Japan: Honorable Award; 2014 – 18th MainichiHaiku Contest, Tokyo, Japan: 2nd Prize; 2014 – Fujisan Haiku Contest, Yamanashi, Japan: Honorable Award; 2022 – His life’s work is part of the Somogy County Treasures; 2023 – Somogy Citizens Award; 2023 – Somogy Value Award; 2025 – Hungarian Gold Cross of Merit