Svetlana Makarovič

Ludwig Hartinger was born in 1952 in Saalfelden am Steinernen Meer in Austria. The poet, translator into Slovenian and French, writer, editor, and publisher has been bringing Slovenian literature closer to the German speaking reader for more than two decades. He lives and works in Ljubljana, Salzburg, and the Karst region of Slovenia. His love for Slovenian sprung from the verses of Srečko Kosovel. He has been publishing the “RanitzDrucke” book series since 1995, and he also works as an editor for the Otto-Müller-Verlag publishing house as well as a co-editor of the Literatur und Kritik literary magazine. A smooth “word smuggler,” he publishes his essays in German and his poetry in Slovenian. His works include translations of Slovenian poetry into German, such as Im Schatten der Worte (In the Shadow of Words, 1998), Das Wasser spricht (Water speaks, 2000), translations of assorted poetry by Srečko Kosovel Mein Gedicht ist Karst (My Poem is Karst, 1994) and Mein Gedicht ist mein Gesicht (My Poem is my Face, 2004), a biography about the Austrian artist and publisher Christian Thanhäuser, Der LinienStifter (The Donor of Lines, 2005), and a book of poetry in Slovenian entitled Ostrina bilk (The Sharpness of the Straws, 2006). He and Aleš Berger have edited three monographs of previously unpublished works by Srečko Kosovel: Ikarjev sen (Icaruses Dream, 2004), Izbrana pisma (Selcted Letters, 2006) and Izbrana proza (Selected Prose, 2008). His intercultural endeavours have won him the Central-European-Initiative-Prize (2004) and the Pretnar Award (2004) for his contributions as an international ambassador of the Slovenian language and its literature.

Alan McConnell Duff was born in 1942 in Ireland. He spent his childhood in South Africa, but left for England after high school to attend the University of Cambridge. As a freelance writer and translator, he worked primarily in France, the former Yugoslavia, India, and, after 1991, in Slovenia. He wrote several radio plays and books on translating and teaching English. He published more than twenty short stories, which have been translated into French, Hungarian, Spanish and Slovenian. His massive translation opus spans many areas, including: literature, history, natural and cultural heritage, art, photography, contemporary Slovenian drama, and science. He translated such famous Slovenian authors as Boris A. Novak, Ivo Svetina, Evald Flisar, Drago Jančar, Josip Osti, Svetlana Makarovič, and others. He also translated Miroslav Krleža, Aleksandar Popović and Goran Stefanovski. He received the prestigious Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, The Society of Authors’ Tom-Gallon Trust Award for his short story “The Comrades Marathon,” and the Trubar Foundation Award for his literary translations. He died in 2012 in Ljubljana.