Aleš Debeljak is a poet and essayist whose recent non-fiction includes The Hidden Handshake: National Identity and European Postcommunism (2004), Reluctant Modernity: The Institution of Art and its Historical Forms (1998) both from Rowman & Littlefield, and Twilight of the Idols: Recollections of a Lost Yugoslavia (White Pine, 1994). He has published three volumes of poetry: Dictionary of Silence (Lumen, 1999), Anxious Moments (1995), and The City and the Child (1999), both from White Pine Press. Debeljak's work is translated internationally and he has been awarded the Slovenian National Book Award, the Miriam Lindberg Israel Poetry for Peace Prize (Tel Aviv), and the Chiqu Poetry Prize (Tokyo). He recieved his PhD in social thought from Syracuse University.  

Photo by Barbara Jakše