Ivan Minatti

Minatti was born in 1924 in Slovenske Konjice in northeastern Slovenia. His family moved first to Slovenj Gradec and then to Ljubljana while he was still a child. He attended Gymnasium in Ljubljana, finished it in 1943, and then enrolled in medical studies, but postponed his education to join the Partisans in 1944.{{cite book |title=Reader's encyclopedia of Eastern European literature |page=[https://archive.org/details/readersencyclope00robe/page/267 267] |editor-first=Robert |editor-last=B. Pynsent |editor2-first=Sonia |editor2-last=I. Kanikova |isbn=9780062700070 |publisher=HarperCollins |year=1993 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/readersencyclope00robe/page/267 }} After the war, he studied Slavic studies at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana and graduated in 1952. He worked as an editor at Mladinska Knjiga publishers from 1947 until his retirement in 1984.{{cite news |url=http://www.rtvslo.si/kultura/knjige/umrl-je-pesnik-in-prevajalec-ivan-minatti/284946 |title=Umrl je pesnik in prevajalec Ivan Minatti |trans-title=Ivan Minatti, Poet and Translator, Has Died |date=9 June 2012 |work=MMC RTV Slovenija |publisher=RTV Slovenija}} He became a regular member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1991. He died at the age of 88 and was buried at Žale in Ljubljana.

Minatti's poems, influenced by the horrors of the war, are lyrical and deal with modern-age resignation and melancholy. According to the poet Boris A. Novak, his work signified a radical break with collectivist postwar poetry and the start of personal poetry, making Minatti one of the breakthrough Slovene poets of the 20th century.{{cite news |url=http://24ur.com/novice/slovenija/po-minattijevi-smrti-bil-je-velik-slovenski-pesnik.html |title=Po Minattijevi smrti: bil je velik pesnik |trans-title=After Minatti's Death: He Was a Great Poet |work=24ur.com |publisher=PRO PLUS, d. o. o. |date=10 June 2012}} The poet and translator Veno Taufer characterised him as a rock-steady and, at the same time, of a soft heart, and ascribed his success to his expression of human as well as social distress in postwar Communist Slovenia. Minatti is known for his references to nature. According to the poet Ciril Zlobec, he used nature as a source of deep symbols and metaphors for man and his life.{{cite news |url=http://www.siol.net/kultura/novice/2012/06/minatti_je_poezijo_zivel_z_enako_intenzivnostjo_kot_zivljenje.aspx |title=Zlobec: Minatti je poezijo živel z enako intenzivnostjo kot življenje |language=sl |trans-title=Zlobec: Minatti Lived Poetry with the Same Intensivity as Life |date=15 June 2012 |newspaper=Planet Siol.net |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130222032405/http://www.siol.net/kultura/novice/2012/06/minatti_je_poezijo_zivel_z_enako_intenzivnostjo_kot_zivljenje.aspx |archive-date=22 February 2013 }}

Minatti won the Prešeren Fund Award in 1964 for his poetry collection You Have to Love Somebody ({{langx|sl|Nekoga moraš imeti rad}}).{{cite web|url=http://www.mk.gov.si/fileadmin/mk.gov.si/pageuploads/Ministrstvo/Podrocja/Preseren/dosedanji_nagrajenci/3_Nagrade_Presernovega_sklada_1962-2012.pdf |title=Nagrade Prešernovega sklada |trans-title=Prešeren Fund Awards |publisher=Slovenian Ministry of Culture |access-date=10 June 2012 }}{{dead link|date=May 2017|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} In 1972, he won the Sovre Award, bestowed for the best translations into Slovene, for his translations of lyrical poems by the Macedonian poet Kočo Racin and the Bosnian poet Izet Sarajlić.{{cite web |url=http://www.dskp-drustvo.si/sovretova_nagrada.php |title=Sovretovi Nagrajenci |language=sl |trans-title=Sovre Laureates |access-date=10 June 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120425021046/http://www.dskp-drustvo.si/sovretova_nagrada.php |archive-date=25 April 2012 }} In 1985, he won the Prešeren Award for his poetry collection I Listen to the Silence Inside Me ({{lang|sl|Prisluškujem tišini v sebi}}).{{cite web|url=http://www.mk.gov.si/fileadmin/mk.gov.si/pageuploads/Ministrstvo/Podrocja/Preseren/dosedanji_nagrajenci/2_Presernove_nagrade1947-2012.pdf |title=Prešernove nagrade |trans-title=Prešeren Awards |publisher=Slovenian Ministry of Culture |access-date=10 June 2012 }}{{dead link|date=May 2017|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}

• Off-Trail ({{lang|sl|S poti}}, 1947)
• And the Spring Will Come ({{lang|sl|Pa bo pomlad prišla}}, 1955)
• You Have to Love Somebody ({{lang|sl|Nekoga moraš imeti rad}}, 1963)
• The Wind Sings ({{lang|sl|Veter poje}}, 1963)
• The Pain of the Unexperienced ({{lang|sl|Bolečina nedoživetega}}, 1964)
• Poems ({{lang|sl|Pesmi}}, 1971)
• The Face ({{lang|sl|Obraz}}, 1972)
• When I Am Silent and Good ({{lang|sl|Ko bom tih in dober}}, 1973)
• The Poems ({{lang|sl|Pesmi}}, 1977) - with Janez Menart and Lojze Krakar
• I Eavesdrop on the Silence Within Me ({{lang|sl|Prisluškujem tišini v sebi}}, 1984)
• Behind the Closed Eyelids: Chosen Poems ({{lang|sl|Pod zaprtimi vekami, izbrane pesmi}}, 1999)
• Minatti – Chosen Lyrical Poetry ({{lang|sl|Minatti – izbrana lirika}}, 2004)

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Category:1924 births

Category:2012 deaths

Category:Slovenian male poets

Category:Slovenian editors

Category:Slovenian translators

Category:Yugoslav poets

Category:Yugoslav editors

Category:Yugoslav translators

Category:Prešeren Award laureates

Category:Members of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Category:University of Ljubljana alumni

Category:20th-century Slovenian poets

Category:People from the Municipality of Slovenske Konjice

Category:Yugoslav Partisans members