Betim Muço (21 January 1947 – 15 January 2015) was an Albanian writer, poet, translator, and seismologist.

Biography

Betim Muço was born in Tirana, the capital of Albania, on January 21, 1947. He graduated in nuclear physics from the

University of Tirana The University of Tirana ( sq, Universiteti i Tiranës, abbreviated UT) is a public university located at the central borough of Tirana 10 in Tirana, Albania. It was established as the ''State University of Tirana'' in 1957 through merging of f ...

in 1970, specializing in seismology. He held a PhD in Earth Sciences. Muço's scientific career spans more than four decades. He contributed to the practice and development of seismology in Albania and the Balkans through his work at the Albanian Seismological Institute (1974 – 2001). He was head of the institution from 1993 to 1997. As director of the Seismological Network of Albania, he led several international and regional projects and published a wide array of scientific articles and books. From 1998 to 2005 Muço co-led two NATO Science for Peace projects on seismology. In 2001 he moved to the United States with his family, and received U.S. citizenship as an "Exceptional Ability Individual in the Sciences and Arts, who would substantially benefit prospectively the national economy, cultural or educational interests, or welfare of the United States." From 2001 Muço lived and worked with his family in Rockville, Maryland, where he continued his scientific work. He was Science Editor and Translator at General Dynamics Information Technology and a consultant for the

Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology IRIS (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology) is a university research consortium dedicated to exploring the Earth's interior through the collection and distribution of seismographic data. IRIS programs contribute to scholarly research, ...

(IRIS) in

Washington DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

. He presented scientific papers in many conferences in the U.S. and Europe. He wrote a series of papers on the correlation between rain and earthquakes in the state of

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

. Muço was a writer and poet; his first poems were published when he was in high school in 1967 in Albania. He also wrote the lyrics of many songs. He went on to write and publish more than 25 books of poetry, short stories, novels and essays. He also wrote children's books, including three collections of fairy tales, dedicated to each of his three children. He won several literary awards in Albania and overseas. Many of his poems and short stories have been translated and published in literary anthologies, journals and magazines in English, Russian, French, Dutch, Romanian and Turkish. He was also a translator into Albanian of works of

Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...

Saul Bellow Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; 10 July 1915 – 5 April 2005) was a Canadian-born American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only w ...

Yukio Mishima , born , was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the , an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered fo ...

, Reiner Maria Rilke,

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bor ...

, and

Alice Munro Alice Ann Munro (; ; born 10 July 1931) is a Canadian short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Munro's work has been described as revolutionizing the architecture of short stories, especially in its tendency to move f ...

. In 2008 he translated into Albanian an "Anthology of World Poetry of the 20th Century", one of the most comprehensive collections of poetry published in Albanian, including included translations of works by 135 world poets. On the evening before his death he was putting the finishing touches to his latest novel, "The Stars Are Quite Close," which is going to be published post-mortem. Muço was honorary consul of Japan in Albania in the 1990s. During a post-doctorate program at the

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project b ...

(1990–1991), he developed close ties with Japan, its culture and especially its community of seismologists. Upon his return, he published a book of ''

haiku is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a ''kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 '' on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a ''kigo'', or s ...

'' (the first ever in Albanian) and a collection of essays on Japanese customs and culture.

Primary career as a physicist

Muço studied

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

at the Faculty of

Natural Sciences Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

of the

, from which he graduated in 1970. After graduation he worked for four years as mathematics and physics teacher in the Krujë District, north of Tirana. In 1974 he moved back in the capital to work as a researcher in the Seismological Institute of the

Academy of Sciences of Albania The Academy of Sciences of Albania ( sq, Akademia e Shkencave e Shqipërisë), founded in 1972, is the most important scientific institution in Albania. In the 1980s, several research institutes began at the University of Tirana were transferred ...

. From 1993 to 1997 he was Director of the Institute and, until 2001, was the head of the Seismological Network of Albania. In 2001 he emigrated to the United States. He was a specialist in the earth sciences, and collaborated or directed many international science projects in the field.Engineering geology and the environment: proceedings : International ... By Paul G. Marinos, Greek National Group of IAEG p.404
Participants representing Albania
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Poet, fiction writer, and translator

Muço published his first poems when he was in high school: his first book of poetry ''On the roads of fatherland'' ( sq, Rrugëve të Atdheut) was published in 1967. During over 30 years of literary activity, Betim Muço published more than 25 books of poems, short stories, novels and essays. He won several national literary awards, in Albania and abroad. Many of his poems and short stories were translated into literary anthologies, journals, and magazines of different countries. Muço also translated into Albanian works of

, Rainer Maria Rilke,

and others. From 2001, he lived and worked in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

until his death in January 2015 in

Rockville, MD Rockville is a city that serves as the county seat of Montgomery County, Maryland, and is part of the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area. The 2020 census tabulated Rockville's population at 67,117, making it the fifth-largest community in ...

Links to work

From Poetry Magazine websiteFrom Poetry Soup websiteSome Poems from Poetry Soup website
* * * * * * *http://www.bssaonline.org/content/81/3/1015.extract *http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/articles/2008/05/05/reportage-01

*http://www.geophysics.geol.uoa.gr/papers/makro/makro166.pdf *ftp://ftp.iris.iris.edu/pub/Betim/Boise%202012%20-%20CVSZ_UPDATED.pdf59 *From Recours au Poem

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Muco, Betim 1947 births 2015 deaths University of Tirana alumni Albanian male writers 21st-century Albanian writers 20th-century Albanian poets 21st-century Albanian poets Albanian translators English–Albanian translators German–Albanian translators Albanian expatriates in the United States People from Tirana Albanian seismologists 20th-century Albanian scientists 21st-century Albanian scientists 20th-century translators