Iztok Osojnik (born 27 July 1951) is a Slovene poet and essayist. Between 1997 and 2004 he was the director of the Vilenica International Literary Festival organized by the

Slovene Writers' Association The Slovene Writers' Association ( sl, Društvo slovenskih pisateljev) is a non-profit association of Slovene writers based in Ljubljana. The association was founded on 21 April 1872 in Ljubljana at the initiative of Davorin Trstenjak who also be ...

. Osojnik was born in

Ljubljana Ljubljana (also known by other historical names) is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center. During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the ar ...

in 1951. He studied

comparative literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...

at the

University of Ljubljana The University of Ljubljana ( sl, Univerza v Ljubljani, , la, Universitas Labacensis), often referred to as UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 39,000 enrolled students. History Beginnings Although certain ...

under the supervision of the literary historian and philosopher

Dušan Pirjevec Dušan Pirjevec, known by his nom de guerre Ahac (20 March 1921 – 4 August 1977), was a Slovenian Partisan, literary historian and philosopher. He was one of the most influential public intellectuals in post–World War II Slovenia. Early yea ...

. In his college years he collaborated with the poet Jure Detela and sociologist Iztok Saksida in publishing their ''Podrealistični manifest'' (The Sub-Realist Manifesto) in 1979 and later participated in the avantgarde group ''Pisarna Aleph'' (Aleph Office). Between 1980 and 1982 he continued his graduate studies at

Kansai Gaidai University , almost always abbreviated ''Kansai Gaidai'' (関西外大), is located in Hirakata, Osaka, Japan. It is a private university focusing on foreign language studies. Kansai is the proper name of the large region where it is located, which inclu ...

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. In 2000 he was a fellow of the Cambridge Seminar on Contemporary English Writers and in 2001 a fellow of the

Goethe Institute The Goethe-Institut (, GI, en, Goethe Institute) is a non-profit German cultural association operational worldwide with 159 institutes, promoting the study of the German language abroad and encouraging international cultural exchange and ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. Between 2002 and 2003 he visited the US on a

Fulbright Fellowship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

. He has published several collections of poetry. In 1996 he received the Jenko Award for his poetry collection ''Klesani kamni'' (Carved Stones).Maribor Public Library site The Jenko Award Laureates
/ref> His poems have been translated into English, German, French, Italian, Croatian, Hungarian,

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

, Macedonian,

Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...

, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, and Romanian. Osojnik lives and works in Ljubljana.

Bibliography

* ''Nasmeh Mone Lize'' (Mona Lisa's Smile) * ''Temni julij'' (Dark July) * ''Nekoč je bila Amerika'' (Once upon a Time There Was America) * ''Iz Novega sveta'' (From the New World) * ''Gospod Danes'' (Mister Today) * ''Zgodba o Dušanu Pirjevcu in meni'' (The Story of Dušan Pirjevec and Myself) * ''Spleen Berlina'' (The Spleen of Berlin)

Works in English

*''Alluminations'' (2000) *''And Some Things Happen for the first Time'' (2001) *''New and Selected Poems'' (2010) *''Elsewhere'' (2011)

References

External links

Janko Kos Janko Kos (born 9 March 1931) is a Slovenian literary historian, theoretician, and critic. He was born in Ljubljana in what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as the son of the painter and sculptor Tine Kos. His father was a liberal and freet ...

, ''Slovenska književnost'' (Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba, 1982), 251.
Author's short biography in EnglishInterview in the magazine ''Mladina''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Osojnik, Iztok Slovenian poets Slovenian male poets Slovenian essayists Writers from Ljubljana 1951 births Living people Veronika Award laureates University of Ljubljana alumni Kansai Gaidai University alumni Fulbright alumni