Ivan V. Lalic

Ivan V. Lalic (1931-96) was perhaps the finest poet in the Serbo-Croat language, and is now recognised as a major figure in European poetry. Thanks to Francis R. Jones's translations, his work can be read as authentic poetry in English. In his concern to interpret the past through the present, the present through the past, Lalic has affinities with other cosmopolitan poets such as Eliot and Quasimodo. A Mediterranean warmth and light suffuses his poetry, in which he explores in direct language and with scalpel-sharp aptness of image the nature of memory, culture - its fragile continuity - and of existence itself. His poems move easily between the personal and the metaphysical. Lalic studied law in Zagreb, where he first began to publish poetry, and worked for the publishers Nolit in Belgrade. He was also a distinguished critic and translator, especially of English poetry.