Boris A. Novak (1953) is a poet, playwright, essayist, translator, Professor at the University of Ljubljana and the Vice-President of International PEN. In the 1990s he organized humanitarian help for refugees from the former Yugoslavia and writers from the besieged city of Sarajevo. He has published 100 books (30 in other languages), among them poetry volumes Mojster nespečnosti (The Master of Insomnia), (Mladinska knjiga, 1995), Alba (Mladinska knjiga, 1999), Obredi slovesa (Rites of Valediction) (Študentska založba, 2005), and Svoboda je glagol (Freedom is a Verb) (Goga, 2022), theatre plays (tragedy Cassandra), poems, fairy tales as well as puppet and radio plays for children. His “Notebooks of Poetic Forms”, Oblike sveta (Forms of the World) (Mladika, 1991), Oblike srca (Forms of the Heart) (Modrijan, 1997), and Oblike duha (Forms of the Spirit) (Mladinska knjiga, 2016) are very popular. His magnum opus is the epic Vrata nepovrata (The Doors of No Return), 45.000 verses on 2.300 pages in three books: Zemljevidi domotožja (Maps of Nostalgia) (Goga, 2014), Čas očetov (The Time of the Fathers) (Goga, 2015) and Bivališča duš (The Dwelling Places of Souls) (Goga, 2017). He translates poetry from ten languages.