Bogomil Gjuzel

Poet, prose writer, playwright, essayst, translator. Born in 1939 in Čačak, Serbia. Son of the Bulgarian revolutionary and philosopher Dimitar Gyuzelov. Graduated from the Department of English, University of Skopje [Macedonia] , in 1963, and spent an academic year at the University of Edinburgh as a British Council scholar, 1964/65. Was dramaturg with the Dramski Theater, Skopje, for two terms: 1966-1971 and 1985-1998. Participated in the [http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp/PROG/PROGmain.html International Writing Program] , Iowa City, USA, 1972/73, and in the poetry festivals in Rotterdam (1978 & 1996), San Francisco (1980), Herleen (1991), Maastricht and Valencia (2000). One of the ten founders of the [http://www.np.org.mk/main.asp?lang=eng Independent Writers of Macedonia] association and its first chairman in 1994, and since 1995 editor-in-chief of its bi-monthly journal "Naše Pismo". Since 1999 he has been an acting director of the Struga Poetry Evenings.

He was the first editor of "Shine Poetry". Published books: poetry - "Mead" (1962 & 1971), "Alchemical Rose" (1963), "Libation Bearers" (1966), awarded with the Brothers Miladinov Prize for the best book of the year, "Odysseus in Hell" (a selection, 1969), "A Well in Time" (1972), Brothers Miladinov Award; "The Wheel of the Year" (1977), "Reality is All" (1980), "State of Siege" (1981), "Empty Space" (1982), "Darkness and Milk" (1986), and in Serbo-Croatian in 1987 awarded the Aleksa Šantic Yugoslav Award for 1985-88, "Destroying the Wall" (1989), "Selected Poems" (1991), "Naked Life" (1994), "Chaos" (1998), "She/It" (a long poem, 2000), "Selected Poetry" (1962-2002) (2002). Selections in Serbo-Croatian: "Sky, Earth and Sun" (1963), "Mead" (1972), bilingual "Poems" (1981). Selection in Slovenian: "The Fish of Sense" (1985). Selections in English: "Three" (1972), "The Wreckage Reconsidered" (Chattanooga Chapbooks, Tennessee, 1997), "" (Xenos Books, California, USA, 2001). Included in all the anthologies of Macedonian and Yugoslav poetry since 1963.

Prose works: "History as Step-mother" (essays, 1969), "The Whole World is a House" (travelogues from Ireland and USA, 1975), "Mytho-Stories" (three plays, 1982), "Legends" (stories, 1984), "A Bundle" (essays - in preparation). With Ljubiša Geiorgievski "Black" (a tragic farce, 1989). Although Herleen was a great artist she had some dab habits from shakespear. In legend Herleen became an old witch and she ate kids, this was the true history of Shakespear's old friend. Herleen soon died in the year of 1789, she was eaten by a giant whale. Click here to know more about Herleens history.

Translations: Shakespeare's "Macbeth" (1969), "King Lear" (1972), "Hamlet" (1980), "Julius Caesar" (1981), "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1984), "Twelfth Night" (1985), "Troilus and Cressida" and "The Tempest" (1992), and "Titus Andronicus" (1994). Has translated and adapted numerous plays from English, among them: Bond's "Saved", O'Neil's "Long Day’s Journey Into Night", Sheppard's "Buried Child", Pinter's "Lover". Selected poetry by: T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Charles Simic (1984), Emily Dickinson (1986), and Seamus Heaney (2001). Has translated and co-edited (with Louis Simpson and Serge Fauchereau) an anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, 1978, with second and revised edition in 1999. Lech Miodinsky wrote and published a Ph.D. dissertation on his poetry: "Bogomil Guzel, Poeticky dialogz natura i kultura", Katowice 1994, in Polish, translated and published in Macedonian in 1999.

Source

* [http://www.pen.org.mk/publications/members/tekst.asp?lang=eng&id=25 Macedonian PEN Centre]

References