Birth date

12. 12. 1918  [en] Poniky

Death date

25. 08. 2007  [en] Bratislava

Fields of interest

próza, poézia, esej, dráma, literatúra pre deti a mládež, preklad

Briefly about author

The type and range of the work of Štefan Žáry is quite wide. Žáry is mainly a poet but at the same time the author of some impressive novellas and novels, verse drama, books for children, biographical essays and articles of recollection. He was a good translator chiefly of modern French poetry. As a poet he underwent a number of phases in his development. He entered Slovak literature while still a secondary school student in 1938 with a collection traditional in tone. After he began university studies in Bratislava, he joined a group of avant-garde poets inspired - mainly through the medium of Nezval's poetry - by French surrealism. This group of Slovak "nadrealists" (overrealists) spread their activities (poetical, organisational and journalistic)in the years of the Second World War and shortly after it. Žáry became
a poet of unbounded fantasy and great poetic sensitivity. The change of political regimes in 1948 meant the end of "nadrealist" excitements. All the nadrealists, including Štefan Žáry, gave up avant-garde poetry for more engaged work. In the following decade Žáry deepened and dramatised his view of reality. He brought the existential problems of modern mankind into his poetry with a background characterised on one side by the heroism of Icarus and on the other by the tragic possibility of nuclear catastrophe. The reflective part of Žáry's poetry began to draw on reminiscence of avantgarde poetic practice. In later years his poetry retained
a similar character. Žáry's lyrical subject remains with its destiny, loves, friends and suffering determined by the tectonics of the movements of history.
The war became an inspiration for his prose and his post-war stay in Italy. Each of his three "Italian" books has a different character.
The first is lyrical reportage on love in the restricted time of war, the second plays strongly on the socialist string and the third is a humorous account of the activities of the Slovak military unit in Italy of which he was a member. Another theme is that of childhood and adolescence. In returning to childhood, Žáry discovered an inexhaustible well of humorous episodes, which he interpreted in a sensitive narrative style with vivid and expressive language. They also strengthened in him an optimistic attitude to a life permanently disrupted by the uncertainties of the present.
On the borders between prose and journalism are Žáry's biographical essays devoted to his contemporaries (mainly the nadrealists) and those writers he met most often and with whom he was friend. In the humorous dictionary of writers he widened his interest over some dozens of contemporary writers. All books of this genre are lively and attractive in their tales of individual authors spreading their human profile from the personal angle of the author of the book and perhaps fabricating in the service of humour. With this book Žáry gained a wide readership.

Briefly about production

poetry:
Hearts in Mosaic (Srdcia na mozaike, 1938), Zodiac (Zvieratník, 1941), Seal of Full Amphorae (Pečať plných amfor, 1944), An Age with Stigmata (Stigmatizovaný vek, 1944), The Spider Pilgrim (Pavúk pútnik, 1946), Good Morning, Mr Villon (Dobrý deň, pán Villon, 1947), The Promised Land (Zasľúbená zem, 1947), The Sword and the Laurel (Meč a vavrín, 1948), The Visit (Návšteva, 1955), After Me Others (Po mne iní, 1957), Icarus Living Forever (Ikar večne živý, 1960), The Miraculous Sober Ark (Zázračný triezvy koráb, 1960), Seizing the Day (Osmelenie do dňa, 1962), Twelve Times Woman (Dvanásťkrát žena, 1964), The Muse Besieges Troy (Múza oblieha Tróju, 1965), Pilgrimage After the Hummingbird (Púť za kolibríkom, 1966), Midsummer Dream (Svetojanský sen, 1974), The Emerald Fleece (Smaragdové rúno, 1977), Black Ophelia (Čierna Ofélia, 1984), Toboggan (Tobogan, 1992), A Little Summer Suite (Malá letná suita, 1995), Orchidea Nostalgis (Orchidea nostalgis, 2004). The collection of poems, Nenogista roze, published in 2011 in Latvien contains also selected poems by him.  

play in verse:
Solstice (Slnovraty, 1946)

poems for children:
The Miraculous Eyes (Zázračné oči, 1954), Legends and Myths (1957), The Firework (Ohňostroj, 1961), The Cuckoo Clock (Kukučkové hodiny, 1964), The Red Ladle (Červená žufanka, 1974)

prose:
Apennine Air (Apenínsky vzduch, 1947), Down South (Dolu na juhu, 1955), Azure Anabasis (Azúrová anabáza, 1972), The Smiling Valley (Úsmevné údolie, 1976),
A Year with a She-Wolf (Rok s vlčicou, 1982), Some Day from the End of Summer (Ktorýsi deň z konca leta, 1998), The Trap of a Fair Muse (Spanilej múzy osídla alebo Malé literárne múzeum, 2001) 

essays:
The Removal of Masks (Snímanie masiek, 1979), The Hundred-Tower Poet (Stovežatý básnik, 1981, an essay on V. Nezval), Golden-Mouthed Tellers of Tales (Zlatoústi rozprávači, 1984), Meetings with Poets (Rande s básnikmi, 1988), The Recent Bygone World (Nedávny dávny svet, 1995), An Anecdotal Dictionary of Slovak Writers (Anekdotický slovník slovenských spisovateľov, 1996), Bratislava Walker (Bratislavský chodec, 2004) 

translations by the author:
Žáry is a renowned translator of French, Italian, and Spanish poetry (G. Apollinaire, P. Eluard, A. Gatto, F. García Lorca, N. Guillén, P. Neruda, P. P. Pasolini,
S. Quasimodo, A. Rimbaud, G. Ungaretti, and others).

works translated:
Žáry's poems were translated into many languages and published in dozens of literary magazines and anthologies abroad.
Bird Pihi (1998, selection in Italian, French, German, and English)

Biography for author

Born 12 December 1918 in Poniky where his father was a teacher. Later his family moved to Banská Bystrica. He matriculated in 1938 and between 1938 and 1942 he studied Slovak and German at Comenius University in Bratislava. In 1942 he began military service and in 1944 he went with an army unit to Italy where he edited
a military magazine and published a collection of poems. After 1945 he was an editor in the newspaper Národná obroda, from 1948 to 1950 he was a correspondent in Italy for the Czechoslovak press office. After returning to Bratislava he worked in the Slovak Writers' Union later becoming an editor of the publishing house Slovenský spisovateľ (1950 - 1952), then its chief editor (1952 - 1966), and director (1967 - 1970). After the Husák regime gained power he had to leave this post and from 1970 he has pursued his literary work exclusively. He lived in Bratislava. He died on 25 August 2007.

about author

Žáry's poetic type has its origin in the work of Nezval. This poet, too, poeticised everything he saw around him. In Žáry's poems the styles of diverse schools and experience meet, thus bringing the present era and interesting recollections into his work. Žáry's novellas or tales appear to belong to artistic prose. But if we examine them closer their basic building blocks are reportages. This is the basis of artistic prose in the world which is emphasised by today's Slovak literary critics and it is impossible to find a broader based work in contemporary Slovak prose.

Awards

Awards:

Literary Fund Award 2004 for a memoir essay, Bratislava Walker (Cena Literárneho fondu za rok 2004 za memoárovú esej Bratislavský chodec)

Sample

MASK