^#smrgSAHAF Kameni Spavac = Stone Sleeper - 1999

Text is in Croatian and English. Illustrations (a few in color).

Mehmedalija "Mak" Dizdar (17 October 1917 - 14 July 1971) was a Bosnian poet. His poetry combined influences from the Bosnian Christian culture, Islamic mysticism and cultural remains of medieval Bosnia, and the ste ci. His works Stone Sleeper and The Blue River are probably the most important Bosnian-Herzegovinian poetic achievements of the 20th century. In 1936, Dizdar relocated to Sarajevo where he attended and graduated from the Gymnasium. He started working for the magazine Gajret, which his brother Hamid regulated and which was founded by Safvet beg Ba?agi . He moved frequently from place to place in order to avoid the Independent State of Croatia authorities' attention. After the war, Dizdar was a prominent figure in the cultural life of Bosnia and Herzegovina, working as the editor-in-chief of the daily Oslobo enje (Liberation). He served as head of a few state-sponsored publishing houses and eventually became a professional writer and the President of the Writers' Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a post he held until his death. Inspired by tombstones and their inscriptions, Mak Dizdar's rich and haunting poems in Stone Sleeper, his most famous work, are a journey into the mysterious heart of medieval Bosnia. The poems form a three-way dialogue between the modern poet, the Christian heretics awaiting Judgment Day beneath their enigmatically-carved tombstones, and the heretic-hunters. Beneath the local and temporal, Dizdar explores universal issues: the value of resistance, though it might be futile; of faith, though it might be illusory; and of life, though it ends in death. Francis R Jones's inventive and beautiful translations convey his deep understanding of Dizdar's purpose. In addition a penetrating analysis of Stone Sleeper's historical, religious and spiritual background is given by the distinguished scholar Rusmir Mahmutcehajic, whose book Across the Water: On the Poetry of Mak Dizdar is published by Fordham University Press.Dr Francis R. Jones (born 1955 in Wakefield, UK) is a poetry translator[1] and Reader in Translation Studies at Newcastle University. He is currently Head of the Translating and Interpreting Section of the School of Modern Languages at Newcastle. He works largely from Dutch and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, though also from German, Hungarian, Russian, and Caribbean creoles. He has twice been awarded the Poetry Society's European Poetry Translation Prize for his translations. Both his poetry translations and prose editing (e.g. of works by Rusmir Mahmut ehaji ) as well as his academic writing show a strong commitment for a non-ethicized view of South Slav culture, and aim to foster parallels and dialogue within the South Slav/post-Yugoslav cultural space.Rusmir Mahmut ehaji is an "academic, author, and former statesman" from Bosnia. Rusmir Mahmut ehaji was born in the town of Stolac in Southern Bosnia. His date of birth is given as 29 June 1948. He was born to a prominent family that has a record of public service in "the Ottoman, the Royal Yugoslav, and the Socialist Yugoslav regimes". He himself has served in the Bosnia and Herzegovina government.