Tomaž Šalamun was born in 1941 in Zagreb, Croatia and raised
in Koper, Slovenia. He took a degree in Art History from the University
of Ljubljana, and before devoting himself to poetry he worked
as a conceptual artist. Having published more than thirty collections of
poetry in his home country, he was recognized as one of the leading
poets in Central Europe. His honors included the Preseren
Fund Prize, the Jenko Prize, a Pushcart Prize, a visiting Fulbright
to Columbia University, and a fellowship to the International
Writing Program at the University of Iowa. His work appeared widely
in English translation, and he regularly spent time in the U.S., having served
as Cultural Attaché for Slovenia in New York. He was married to the painter Metka Krašovec.
Šalamun died December 27, 2014, in Ljubljana.
