Kaupunki ja lapsi

by Aleš Debeljak, Kari Klemelä (Translator)

Debeljak's previous collection "Anxious Moments was a tremendous critical success. Yet between 1990 and 1995, commensurate with Yugoslavia's slide into war, Debeljak wrote no poems. It took the birth of his daughter, his new muse, to bring forth this collection of irregular sonnets. "The Child and the City is a meditation on the conjunction of war and fatherhood, and national literary tradition.

Genres: Poetry

83 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Aleš Debeljak was a Slovenian cultural critic, poet, and essayist.

He graduated from comparative literature at the University of Ljubljana in 1985.

Aleš continued his studies in the United States, obtaining a PhD in sociology of culture at Syracuse University in 1989. He was later a Senior Fulbright fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. He also worked at the Institute for Advanced Studies Collegium Budapest, the Civitella Ranieri Center and the Bogliasco Liguria Study Center for the Arts and Humanitites.

During the Slovenian Spring (1988–1992), Debeljak actively participated in the democratization process in Slovenia. He was a professor of cultural studies at the Faculty for Social Studies of the University of Ljubljana.

He was married to the American columnist and translator Erica Johnson Debeljak. They had three children and lived in Ljubljana.

Reviews

[Tobija · Rating 3 out of 5]

Modern sonnets, caught somewhere between classic world, postmodernity, Balkan wars and his muse Erica.

[Vasha7]

A translation from the Slovenian. This "garland of sonnets" is quite difficult for me to read. For one thing, there is so little rhythm to the translated lines that they don't stick in my mind. For the most part, the images seem strung together without much connection. I'm certainly missing a lot of background that would bring sense. Reading the whole volume in one sitting helps a little -- the images gain resonance by being repeated in different contexts. The whole is full of Christian references. It's easier to make out themes that unite individual sections. For instance, "Interpretation of Love" is, indeed, all love (with flower imagery), not sure if it's all addressed to the poet's wife; "Young Muse" addressed to newborn daughter (a theme that makes almost any writer get a bit sappy); the entire book speaks of the wars that tore up Yugoslavia in the early 90s -- some repeated references that seem to evoke the long history of the region are fortresses, stones, Roman legions; "Manufacturing Dust" has a lot of hunting imagery, but that recurs in the rest of the book too; "Second Baptism" is about exiles, travels, pilgrimages, and also fellowship with other poets.