Charles Simic

Charles Simic was born Dušan Simić in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. His childhood was marked by the bombings, terror, and displacement of World War II, experiences that later infused his poetry with surrealism, tragicomic menace, and existential foreboding. He emigrated to the United States as a teenager in 1954, studying at New York University and serving in the US Army before publishing his first poems.

Simic taught American literature and creative writing at the University of New Hampshire for over three decades. His poetry, noted for its stark brevity, mordant irony, and vivid imagery of everyday objects imbued with metaphysical dread, earned critical adoration. In 1990, his prose-poem collection The World Doesn't End was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. In 2007, the Librarian of Congress appointed him United States Poet Laureate. He was also a celebrated translator of French, Serbian, and Slovenian verse.