Milan Dekleva

Milan Dekleva (1946) is a poet, writer, playwright, essayist, and translator. His first book of poetry titled Mushi, mushi (1971) is considered as the first Slovenian collection of haiku poetry. He writes plays, fiction, puppet plays, audio plays, poetry, stories, and musicals for children. Milan Dekleva has received many accolades for his work, among them the Jenko Award (1990) for the book of poetry Odjedanje božjega (Eating Away the Divine, 1988); the Rožanc Award (1999) for the collection of essays Gnezda in katedrale (Nests and Cathedrals, 1997); the Veronika Award (2003 and 2008) for the respective books of poetry V živi zob (Into the open Wound, 2003) and Audrey Hepburn, slišiš metlo budističnega učenca? (Audrey Hepburn, Can You Hear the Broom of the Buddhist Student?, 2008); the Kresnik Award (2006) for the novel Zmagoslavje podgan (The Triumph of the Rats, 2005); and the Prešeren Award (2006) for his lifetime achievement in poetry and writing. He was also honoured with the Desetnica Award for children's literature (2011) for the children's book of poetry Pesmarica prvih besed (Songbook of First Words, 2009) and included in the IBBY Honour List (2010) for his translation of Julia Donaldson's picture book Room on this Broom (Bi se gnetli na tej metli) to Slovene.