Vasko Popa

Vasile “Vasko” Popa was born in Grebenac, Serbia, then a part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and raised in a Banat Romanian family. In World War II, Popa fought alongside the Communist partisans and was imprisoned in a German concentration camp in Bečkerek (now Zrenjanin, Serbia). After the war, in 1949, he completed his philosophy degree at the University of Belgrade.

In 1953, Popa published his first major poetry collection, Kora (approximately translated “Bark”). It was followed by Nepočin-polje (approximately translated “Field of No Rest”; 1956), Sporedno nebo (approximately translated “Secondary Heaven”; 1968), Uspravna zemlja (approximately translated “Earth Erect”; 1972), and Vučja so (approximately translated “Wolf’s Salt”; 1975). He also compiled an anthology of Serbian folk literature, titled Od zlata jabuka (approximately translated “The Golden Apple”, 1958). His Collected Poems, 1943–1976, was published in English in 1978 with an introduction by Ted Hughes. It has multiple editions from Anvil Press Poetry, most recently in 2011. Popa’s work was often in series, and has often been noted for its epic scope and folkloric inspiration.

Other works by Popa that have been translated into English include Vasko Popa (New York Review of Books, 2019); The Star Wizard’s Legacy: Six Poetic Sequences, translated by Morton Marcus (White Pine Press, 2010); The Golden Apple (Anvil Press Poetry, 1980); Homage to the Lame Wolf: Selected Poems, translated by Charles Simic (Oberlin College Press, 1979); and Earth Erect (Anvil Press Poetry, 1973).

Popa made significant contributions to Serbian literature and culture beyond his own writing. From 1954 to 1979, he was an editor at the publishing house Nolit. In 1972, he both founded the Literary Municipality Vršac and was inducted into the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Seven years later, he cofounded the Vojvodina Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Popa’s writing was recognized with numerous awards, including the inaugural Branko Radičević Award for Poetic Achievement in 1953, the Jovan Jovanović Zmaj Award in 1956, the Austrian State Award for European Literature in 1968, the Branko Miljković Award in 1976, the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia Award in 1978, and the Skender Kulenović Literary Award in 1983.

Popa married Jovanka “Hasha” Singer soon after the war, and they remained married until his death in Belgrade on January 5, 1991, from lung cancer.