Aleš Šteger was born in Pluj, Slovenia, in 1973. A poet and prose writer, he is now based in Ljubljana. His work has been widely translated and appeared in the New Yorker, Boston Review, Süddeutsche Zeitung and many other publications. In 2016 he was awarded the International Bienek Prize for poetry by the Bavarian Academy of Arts. Among other prizes the English translation by Brian Henry of his poetry collection Knjiga reči, The Book of Things (BOA Editions, 2010), won two leading US translation awards (BTBA and AATSEL). Three of his sixteen other books have been published in English translation: Berlin (stories), Essential Baggage (poetry) and Absolution (novel). He works in various artforms, including a large-scale installation at the International Kochi-Muziris Arts Biennale in India, and collaborations with musicians (Godalika, Uroš Rojko, Peter N. Gruber) and the film director Peter Zach. He is the initiator of the European platform for poetry Versopolis.