Encounter with Aleksandar Petrov

Born in Nis (Yugoslavia) 1938, Aleksandar Petrovic received his Ph.D. from the University of Zagreb with the thesis Poetry of Milos Crnjanski in the evolution of Serbian poetry. For many years he was Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Literature and Art in Belgrade and Director of the History of Literature Department. As an outstanding poet and novelist, Aleksandar Petrov is featured in the Dictionary of Literary Biography (v. 181, 242-250 p.p., Washington D.C. and London 1997) and is considered one of the most important Serbian writers of the post World War II period. He has served as President of the Writers’ Association of Serbia and Acting President of the Writers’ Association of the former Yugoslavia. Petrov is a member of the International P.E.N. and several other literary and academic associations. He has taught at over ten universities in the U.S.A. and has lectured extensively in many countries of the world. Since 1993, he is affiliated with The University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, U.S.A.  Petrov has published 8 books of poems in Serbia and translations of his books were published in Britain, France, Spain, Sweden, Romania, Poland, Israel, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and the U.S.A. His poems were translated into 29 languages and included in anthologies of World, European, Yugoslav and Serbian poetry. He is author of three novels, “Like Gold in Fire”  (“Kao zlato u vatri” 1998),  “Turkish Vienna” (“Turski Be?” 2000 and “The Lion’s Cave” (“Lavlja pe?ina” 2004) and as an Trilogy 2009).

A. Petrov is the recepient of several major Serbian and international literary awards. In 2004 he has received the most outstanding Romanian award for poetry, The Lucian Blaga Great Award for Poetry. In 2008 won an award in Moscow  as the best Russian language poet writing in the Russian Diaspora, Serbian Writer Association for Life Achievement (2009), and the Serbian Krivak  Award 2012 for Culture.