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Translated from the Slovenian by Brian Henry
Published: Mon Oct 25 2021
Eva Lundsager, Were now like (detail), 2021, oil on canvas
AGNI 94 Print Only

Tomaž Šalamun (1941–2014), a Slovenian born in Zagreb, Croatia, is considered one of the great postwar Central European poets. Among his books translated into English are The Blue Tower (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011), On the Tracks of Wild Game (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2012), and Soy Realidad (Dalkey Archive Press, 2014). Šalamun taught at the Universities of Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Massachusetts, Pittsburgh, and Richmond, and was invited to be member of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 1971. He also spent several years as cultural attaché to the Slovenian Consulate in New York. He lived in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Brian Henry is the author of eleven books of poetry, most recently Permanent State (Threadsuns Press, 2020). He has translated Tomaž Šalamun’s Woods and Chalices, Aleš Debeljak’s Smugglers, and five books by Aleš Šteger. His work has received, among other honors, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, a Howard Foundation fellowship, a Slovenian Academy of Arts and Sciences grant, and the Best Translated Book Award. He coedited Verse from 1995 to 2018. (updated 10/2021)
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