Miroslav Košuta

Miroslav Košuta was born in 1936 in Križ near Trieste. He attended the Slovene gymnasium in Trieste and continued his studies at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. He graduated in comparative literature and literary theory in 1962. He was employed as a journalist and editor at Radio Slovenia, but in 1969 he returned to Trieste as a stage director of the Slovenian Repertory Theatre for three seasons and as an editor of the monthly magazine Dan at Založništvo tržaškega tiska publishing house until 1987. He was the theatre manager and artistic leader of the Slovenian Repertory Theatre in Trieste until his retirement. Considered the most important contemporary Slovene minority poet in Italy, he first wrote poems for the Trieste secondary school textbook Literarne vaje and later, as a student, published his work in a number of literary magazines and journals. At the same time he also translated Spanish and Italian poetry. Miroslav Košuta writes poetry for adults, cultural and political articles and essays, poems for children and young people, theatre and radio plays.
Some of his most important works: Morje brez obale (Sea without a Coast, 1963), Tržaške pesmi (Trieste Poems, 1974), Abecerime (Abc Rhymes, 1979), Kriško kraške (Of Križ and Karst, 2005), Križada (Crossroads, 2006), Mavrična školjka (The Rainbow Shell, 2011) and Drevo življenja (The Tree of Life, 2011). For his work, he has received numerous awards: the Prešeren Fund Award (1978), Kajuh Award (1988), Levstik Award (1989), “Vstajenje” Award (2002), Golden Coin for Poetry (2008) and IBBY Honour List (2008). In 2011 he received the Prešeren Award for lifetime achievement.