Andes
The penultimate work from renowned Slovenian poet Tomaž Šalamun, Andes was written less than three years before his death in 2014. Together, the poems of Andes are an exceptional and unusual journey that confronts both life and death across diverse continents, peoples, cities, languages, and histories. In his eulogy for Šalamun, the Slovene poet Miklavž Komelj said: “Šalamun achieved this highest level, where the real question regarding his poetry isn’t what someone thinks of it, or if someone likes it or not, but solely, if we are able to endure it or not.” Like life and the human condition itself, these poems are at times challenging but also absurd, celebratory, and ecstatic—and completely worth it. Translators Jeffrey Young and Katarina Vladimirov Young worked closely with Šalamun before his death and render here a translation absolutely faithful to his voice and intention.
Tomaž Šalamun was born in 1941 in Zagreb, Croatia and raised in Koper, Slovenia. He published more than fifty books of poetry in Slovenian during his lifetime, and he is not only recognized as a leading figure of the Slovenian poetic avant-garde but is also considered one of the leading contemporary poets of Central Europe. In 1996 he became the Slovenian Cultural Attaché in New York and lived in the US intermittently until his death in 2014. His honors include the Preseren Fund Prize, the Jenko Prize, Laurel Wreath, Poetry and People Prize, Njegoš Prize, Europäsche Prize, Pushcart Prize, a visiting Fulbright to Columbia University, and a fellowship to the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Besides teaching at several distinguished universities and having his work appear in over seventy journals and magazines internationally, he has had fifteen collections of poems published in English so far. All together, his poetry has been translated into over twenty languages around the world, numbering over eighty volumes. He leaves an expanding legacy with readers and especially with the many young poets who were influenced by his work.
Jeffrey Young is a writer and editor. He wrote and co-directed a short film about Tomaž Šalamun called Every True Poet and is at work on a feature documentary about Šalamun’s life and legacy.
Katarina Vladimirov Young is a visual artist and illustrator.
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