Slovenian Poet Aleš Šteger Wins US Translation Award
- Aleš Šteger. Photo: STA
June 2011
The poetic creativity of Aleš Šteger, a representative of a younger generation of Slovenian poets, has earned him a remarkable award. With the translation of his collection of poems, The Book of Things, he was named among the five finalists for translated poetry in the USA and also won the 2011 Best Translation Book Award.
Aleš Šteger's The Book of Things was published in Slovenia in 2006 by the Beletrina publishing house, while its translation by the poet Brian Henry was published in autumn 2010 by BOA Editions (Rochester, New York) as part of the prestigious Lannan Series, in which one translated book is published per year. Prior to that, individual poems were published in many magazines, including Boston Review, Times Literary Supplement and the weekly The New Yorker. This is the first time a Slovenian poet was published in such a prestigious and influential American weekly magazine.
Aleš Šteger was presented the award during the PEN World Voices Festival. According to a poetry committee member, Kevin Prufer, "the poems in Aleš Šteger's The Book of Things focus with nearly comic intensity on an array of everyday objects – an egg, a coat, a toothpick, a stomach. Here, a potato recollects the soil it came from. Or a hand dryer speaks a windy language we can't quite understand. Or a doormat forgives us all. But Šteger's poems go far beyond mere comic description, personification, or metaphor." He also added: "Šteger's The Book of Things is harrowing and hilarious, unnerving and weirdly familiar – and, most of all, ambitious in its attempt to look anew into our all-too-human darkness."
Text by Polona Prešeren, Sinfo July 2011
Aleš Šteger studied comparative literature and German at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana and he continues to live there, working as an author, translator and editor. He was editor of the student magazine Tribuna; he has also published articles in various domestic and foreign media. He attends international conferences and reading sessions.
He was co-founder and between 1995 and 2004 the programme director of the Days of Poetry and Wine international poetry festival, held in Medana. He also translates from German and Spanish. His poems have been set to music by several popular musicians, including Godalika.
Aleš Šteger (website)
Link
- Photo - source: University of Rochester /www.rochester.edu/
Individual Šteger's poems were published in many magazines, including Boston Review, Times Literary Supplement and the weekly The New Yorker. This is the first time a Slovenian poet was published in such a prestigious and influential American weekly magazine.
Days of Poetry and Wine 2011
