TOMAŽ ŠALAMUN

Tomaz Salamun was born in Zagreb on  July 4, 1941, moving shortly thereafter with his parents to Ljubljana for eight years and then to Mostar, Herzegovina. The family subsequently returned to Koper in Slovenia, where he attended high school and graduated in 1960. His family was highly intellectual and artistic. Tomaz Salamun studied at the University of Ljubljana where he became associated with the OHO Group in which his brother, the painter Andraz Salamun, was already active..

Tomaz Salamun devoted himself to poetry and became a freelance artist. In 1963, he began publishing his work in the magazine Perspektive / Perspectives, whose aesthetics were closely related to the OHO movement. He became the magazine’s editor. After the government banned the magazine, Salamun was jailed for several days.

Tomaz Salamun earned his degree in art history. In 1969 he was employed as a trainee at the Museum of Modern Art (Ljubljana), and in 1971, as an assistant professor of art history at the Academy of Fine Arts (Ljubljana). In the seventies his travels largely inspired his collections of poetry. In 1970, he spent three months doing postgraduate work in Pisa, and afterward traveled mostly to North America. During his stay in the USA he was a cultural attaché. In the U.S. he was considered an American poet and was ranked as one of the best. 

In 1993, when Salamun’s poems were included in the renowned Condor collection, his work became a Slovenian classic. In 2005, he became a member of the Slovenian Academy of Science and Arts. Today, he lives and works in Ljubljana and continues to travel. 

Tomaz Salamun’s work was primarily published in Perspectives, Almanac EVA, Pericarežeracirep, Katalog I and Katalog II.