MARJAN STROJAN was brought up on a small farm in Slovenia. He studied philosophy and comparative literature, and worked at one time or another as a baggage carrier and load-sheet-man at an airport, a film critic in Ljubljana, and a journalist in London. His first book of poetryIzlet v naravo [An Excursion into Nature] came out in 1989; his third book Parniki v dežju [Steamers in the Rain] received the 2000 Veronika Award for the poetry book of the year; three more volumes have followed since. Strojan has also published many translations, including Beowulf (1992), selections from the poetry of James Joyce (2000), Lavinia Greenlaw (2000), Robert Frost (2001), Sydney Lea, (2006), as well as Milton’s Paradise Lost (2003, 2011) and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (2012). In 1997, he published an Antologija angleške poezije [Anthology of English Poetry]. His most recent work, a translation of Shakespeare’s songs from plays (Pesmi iz iger), to which he added his own variations on the subject (Igre iz pesmi), will appear in 2016. Translations of Strojan’s work have appeared in many languages. His additional honors include the Sovré Translation Prize for Beowulf and for Milton’s Izgubljeni raj, and, in 2015, the distinguished France Prešeren Foundation Prize for his translation of Chaucer.
