Aleš Šteger has published six books of poetry, a novel, and two books of essays in Slovenian. He received the 1998 Veronika Prize for the best Slovenian poetry volume of the year, the 1999 Petrarch Prize for young European authors, and the 2007 Rožančeva Award for the best book of essays written in Slovenian. His work has been translated into fourteen languages, including German, Czech, Croatian, Hungarian, and Spanish. He is a founding editor of the Beletrina publishing house, and he founded the Medana Days of Poetry and Wine festival. The Book of Things, a volume of poetry translated by Brian Henry, appeared from BOA Editions in 2010 as a Lanna Foundation selection and won the 2011 Best Translated Book Award.
Brian Henry is the author of ten books of poetry, most recently Brother No One (Salt Publishing, 2013). His translation of Aleš Šteger’s The Book of Things appeared from BOA Editions in 2010 and won the 2011 Best Translated Book Award for Poetry. He has received numerous awards for his work, including fellowships from the NEA, the Howard Foundation, and the Slovenian Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Summer 2013
Teufelsberg
From the top of the Eiffel Tower’s little cousin one could see across the green endlessness all the way to the Alps and Urals. Only lakes, which like tiny snakes were dragged to the southwest, broke up the monolithic forests, the evening glare of traffic jams on the roads, above which the trace of an airplane every so often sewed together the clouds like threading a roast.