Nikola Madzirov – författare

Macedonia's Nikola Madzirov is one of the most powerful voices in contemporary European poetry. Born in a family of Balkan War refugees in Strumica in 1973, he grew up in the Soviet era in the former Republic of Yugoslavia ruled by Marshall Tito. When he was 18, the collapse of Yugoslavia prompted a shift in his sense of identity - as a writer reinventing himself in a country which felt new but was still nourished by deeply rooted historical traditions. The example and work of the great East European poets of the postwar period - Vasko Popa, Czeslaw Milosz, Zbigniew Herbert - were liberating influences on his writing and thinking. The German weekly magazine Der Spiegel compared the quality of his poetry to Tomas Transtromer's. There is a clear line from their generation, and that of more recent figures like Adam Zagajewski from Poland, to Nikola Madzirov, but Madzirov's voice is a new 21st century voice in European poetry and he is one of the most outstanding figures of the post-Soviet generation. Remnants of Another Age, his first book of poetry published in English, is introduced by Carolyn Forche, who writes: 'Madzirov calls himself "an involuntary descendant of refugees", referring to his family's flight from the Balkan Wars a century ago: his surname derives from mazir or majir, meaning "people without a home". The ideas of shelter and of homelessness, of nomadism, and spiritual transience serves as a palimpsest in these Remnants' - while Madzirov himself tells us in one of his poems, 'History is the first border I have to cross.' Bilingual Macedonian-English edition.

"These poems move mysteriously by means of a profound inner concentration, giving expression to the deepest laws of the mind. Their linguistic 'making' is informed by vivid evidence of a serious self-making, soul-making, and heart-making. We are lucky to have these English incarnations of Nikola Madzirov."--Li-Young Lee Born 1973 in a family of Balkan Wars refugees, Nikola Madzirov's poetry has already been translated into thirty languages and published in collections and anthologies in the United States, Europe, and Asia. A regular participant in international literary festivals, he has received several international awards including an International Writing Program fellowship at the University of Iowa. Remnants of Another Age is his first full-length American collection and carries a foreword by Carolyn Forche who writes, "Nikola Madzirov's Remnants of Another Age is aptly titled, as these poems seem to spring from elsewhere in time, reflective of a preternaturally wise and attentive sensibility. As we read these poems, they begin to inhabit us, and we are the better for having opened ourselves to them. Madzirov is a rare soul and a true poet.""I SAW DREAMS" I saw dreams that no one remembers and people wailing at the wrong graves. I saw embraces in a falling airplane and streets with open arteries. I saw volcanoes asleep longer than the roots of the family tree and a child who's not afraid of the rain. Only it was me no one saw, only it was me no one saw.