Guest of the ilb 2003
Tomaž Šalamun was born in
Zagreb, Yugoslavia, in 1941 and grew up in Koper, Slovenia. He
studied History and Art History at the university of Ljubljana.
In the years that followed, he continued his studies in Italy and
France and celebrated his first success not only as a poet but also as
a conceptual artist. Before his first poetry publications, he
participated in the International Writing Program in Iowa (1971 to
1973) and was able to take an extensive look at American verse.
In 1986 a Fulbright scholarship brought him to Columbia University in
New York, where he returned from 1996 to 1999 as a cultural attaché
with the Slovenian consulate. In 2003 he was a guest of the German
Academci Exchange Service in Berlin. Today Šalamun lives with his wife,
the artist Metka Krašovec, in Ljubljana.
Starting in his student days, Šalamun worked for Slovenia’s most
important literary magazine 'Perspektive'. When in 1964 the
magazine published the young editor’s first subversive poems, the
authorities stepped in. But,
according to Šalumun, it was his fiveday imprisonment that first sowed
the seeds for the popular success of his experimental works. The
private publication of his first collection of verse 'Poker' (1966)
sparked the development of a Slovenian avant-garde. Since
'Poker', Tomaž Šalamun has published 32 books of poetry, won his
country’s most important literature prize, and made a name for himself
internationally with translations into numerous European
languages. Over the years his poetry – as evident in the 1997 US
retrospective 'The Four Questions of Melancholy' – has matured
stylistically and come to address a wider variety of themes without
losing its provocative energy. From the perspective of a
first-person narrator, Šalamun looks at the surreal aspects of everyday
life and love, yet always remains the "bugbear", delving into the abyss
of the human soul and laying bare the borders and rules of the
Slovenian language.
Šalamun’s verse is characterised by the strife-torn history of the
Balkans yet has a far wider relevance. The influence of
contemporary American poetry, familiar to him through his translation
work, cannot be missed and in the United States earned him a reputation
as the "unknown force" behind a new generation of American writers.
In German-speaking countries, where there are only three
translations to date, he is far from receiving the attention he
deserves.
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