From his first book of poems, Chessboards of Hours, published in 1995 when he was 22 years old, Aleš Šteger has been considered one of Slovenia’s most promising poets. That promise has been unleashed over the course of a decade and a half, through three more books of poetry (Kashmir, Protuberances, and The Book of Things), a fictional travelogue in Peru (January in the Middle of Summer), and a collection of lyric essays (Berlin), which received an award for being the best book of essays written in Slovenian. The philosophical and lyrical sophistication of his poems, along with his work as a leading book editor and festival organizer, earned Šteger a reputation that quickly traveled beyond the borders of Slovenia. The international reach of his work seems appropriate considering its international concerns and refusal to acknowledge limits to, or boundaries of, art, thought, and even genre. Although grounded in and growing from his home country, Šteger’s work in multiple genres and on many fronts testifies to his growing stature as one of Central Europe’s most essential literary figures.
