Ales Steger was born in 1973 in Ptuj, Slovenia - where he grew up - then part of the former Yugoslavia ruled by Tito, which gained its independence when he was 18. He published his first collection in 1995 at the age of 22, and was immediately recognised as a key voice in the new generation of post-Communist poets not only in Slovenia but throughout central Europe. Notable for its moral engagement, Steger's poetry is acutely precise in its observation and concentration as well as multi-layered and technically versatile, ingenious and inventive, adventurous and playful yet serious in intention. Above all, his poems are incessantly curious in their investigations which the reader is invited to share - and he loves to ambush the reader with the unexpected. His influences are mainly European, including the Serbian master poet Vasko Popa, as well as German and Spanish-language poets he has translated into Slovenian, such as Bachmann, Benn, Huchel, Neruda and Vallejo. He has added his own strand of writing to the distinctively European genre of prose poems in pieces which describe everyday objects in minute terms, only to explode in the imagination through what he perceives in them. He is also known for his prose books and experimental writing including his Written on Site pieces.

The poems in Ales Steger's The Book of Bodies roam across personal experience, human history, and the natural world to unlock intellectual and emotional connections. Ales Steger's The Book of Bodies directly follows-and builds on and veers from-The Book of Things. The 50 poems in The Book of Things focus on such everyday objects as umbrellas, chairs, and candles, and in so doing illuminate the human condition, particularly its propensity for violence, deception, and forgetting. The 50 poems in The Book of Bodies manage to be simultaneously more and less restrictive: half the poems are prose poems (of five paragraphs each) that roam across personal experience, human history (individual and collective), and the natural world to unlock intellectual and emotional connections; the other half are narrow stanzaless poems that focus on a single word. These poems have a sinuous, almost vaporous quality on the page-lines so thin that they serve as a response to the prose that dominates the first half of the book. Both types of poems in The Book of Bodies are essential to Steger's understanding of the world. "Esteemed American readers, Ales Steger is the real thing! He is the poet of inimitable gifts! He is one of the best Eastern European poets of his generation! It is the truth: Steger is a marvelous voice, one that takes some of the playfulness of his Yugoslavian compatriots Vasko Popa and Tomaz Salamun to the whole new level." - Ilya Kaminsky Slovenian writer Ales Steger has published eight books of poetry, three novels, and two books of essays. A Chevalier des Artes et Lettres in France and a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts, he received the 1998 Veronika Prize for the best Slovenian poetry book, the 1999 Petrarch Prize for young European authors, the 2007 Rozanc Award for the best Slovenian book of essays, and the 2016 International Bienek Prize. His work has been translated into over 15 languages, including Chinese, German, Czech, Croatian, Hungarian, and Spanish. Four of his books have been published in English: The Book of Things, which won the 2011 Best Translated Book Award; Berlin; the novel Absolution; and Above the Sky Beneath the Earth. He also has worked in the field of visual arts (most recently with a large scale installation at the International Kochi-Muziris Biennale in India), completed several collaborations with musicians (Godalika, Uros Rojko, Peter N. Gruber), and collaborated with Peter Zach on the film Beyond Boundaries. Brian Henry is the author of eleven books of poetry, most recently Permanent State. He co-edited the international magazine Verse from 1995 to 2018 and established the Tomaz Salamun Prize in 2015. His translation of Ales Steger's The Book of Things appeared from BOA Editions in 2010 and won the Best Translated Book Award. He also has translated Tomaz Salamun's Woods and Chalices (Harcourt, 2008), Ales Debeljak's Smugglers (BOA, 2015), and Ales Steger's Above the Sky Beneath the Earth (White Pine, 2019) and Berlin (Counterpath, 2015). His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, the New York Times, Poetry, The New Republic, American Poetry Review, and many other places. His poetry and translations have received numerous honors, including two NEA fellowships, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, a Howard Foundation fellowship, the Carole Weinstein Poetry Prize, the Cecil B. Hemley Memorial Award, the George Bogin Memorial Award, and a Slovenian Academy of Arts and Sciences grant.

It's Carnival time 2012, and the Slovenian city of Maribor is European Capital of Culture. In an attempt to maximize profit, local politicians and showman peddle every possible art form. Amidst the hype, dramatist Adam Bely and Cuban-Austrian journalist Rosa Portero pursue a secret mission: to track down and overthrow the sinister octopus of 13 selected persons that seems to be in control. On the way, they encounter a variety of important citizens, all entangled in a web of corruption and lies. In the tradition of Bulgakov, Gogol and Kafka Ales Steger lets the forces of good and evil collide in this grandiose literary thriller. This is a debut novel filled with striking personae, haunting images and a grotesque plot. It proves, in the end, to be a journey into the heart of a European darkness.

Winner of The 2011 Best Translated Book of the Year Award
Winner of The 2011 Award for Best Literary Translation into English from the AATSEL

From his first book of poems, "Chessboards of Hours" (1995), Ales Steger has been one of Slovenia's most promising poets. The philosophical and lyrical sophistication of his poems, along with his work as a leading book editor and festival organizer, quickly spread Steger's reputation beyond the borders of Slovenia. "The Book of Things" is Steger's most widely praised book of poetry and his first American collection. The book consists of fifty poems that look at "things" (i.e. aspirin, chair, cork) which are transformed by Steger's unique poetic alchemy.

Translator Brian Henry is a distinguished poet, translator, editor, and critic.
From Publisher's Weekly:
Steger's efforts sometimes bring to mind such Western European figures as Francis Ponge and Craig Raine, who also sought to make household things look new and strange. Yet Steger brings a melancholy Central European sense of history- his objects tend to remember, or cause, great pain: "It pours, this poisonous, sweet force," Steger writes of "Saliva," "Between teeth, when you spit your own little genocide." (Nov.)
From Guernica, a Magazine of Art and Politics:
It is a rare treat to have an English translation before the ink has dried on the original. By which I mean, a mere five years after the book's Slovenian publication, Brian Henry has brought these poems to life for those of us not lucky enough to read Slovenian. Henry's translations are impressive for sheer acrobatics.

A wide-ranging collection of reflective essays, to mark the centenary of the conflict that changed the world. In this collection of essays, ten leading writers from different countries consider the conflicts that have informed their own literary lives. 1914-Goodbye to All That borrows its title from Robert Graves's "bitter leave-taking of England" in which he writes not only of the First World War but the questions it raised: how to live, how to live with each other, and how to write. Interpreting this title as broadly and ambiguously as Graves intended, these essays mark the War's centenary by reinvigorating these questions. The book includes Elif Shafak on an inheritance of silence in Turkey, Ali Smith on lost voices in Scotland, Xiaolu Guo on the 100,000 Chinese sent to the Front, Daniel Kehlmann on hypnotism in Berlin, Colm Toibin on Lady Gregory losing her son fighting for Britain as she fought for an independent Ireland, Kamila Shamsie on reimagining Karachi, Erwin Mortier on occupied Belgium's legacy of shame, NoViolet Bulawayo on Zimbabwe and clarity, Ales Steger on resisting history in Slovenia, and Jeanette Winterson on what art is for. Contributors include: Ali Smith - Scotland Ales Steger - Slovenia Jeanette Winterson - England Elif Shafak - Turkey NoViolet Bulawayo - Zimbabwe Colm Toibin - Ireland Xiaolu Guo - China Erwin Mortier - Belgium Kamila Shamsie - Pakistan Daniel Kehlmann - Germany 'Tender, compassionate humanity' Peter Conrad, Observer 'A global gathering of essayists here reimagine the war from a variety of vantage points' Guardian 'This superb collection of essays by some of today's leading writers stands out among the many books commissioned to mark the centenary of the First World War.' The Lady Lavinia Greenlaw's poetry includes The Casual Perfect and A Double Sorrow: Troilus and Criseyde. Other works include The Importance of Music to Girls and Questions of Travel: William Morris in Iceland. She was the first artist-in-residence at the Science Museum, and received the Ted Hughes Award for her sound work Audio Obscura. Her work for BBC radio includes documentaries about Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, the darkest place in England and Arctic light.