Kajetan Kovič

Who is Kajetan Kovič?

Kajetan Kovič is a Slovene poet, writer, translator and journalist. He is best known for his poems and has written several bestselling children's books.

Kovič was born in Maribor in 1931 and spent his childhood in the small town of Poljčane and Hrastje-Mota near Radenci in eastern Slovenia. He completed secondary school in Maribor and graduated in comparative literature at the University of Ljubljana in 1956.

He won the Prešeren Foundation Award in 1967 for his poetry collection Ogenjvoda and the Grand Prešeren Award in 1978 for his for his poetry collection Labrador

Kovič also established himself as a translator of German, French, Czech, Hungarian, Croatian, Serbian and Russian poetry into Slovene. He also translated the poems that France Prešeren wrote in German into Slovene.

In 1995 he was made a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.