One of the greatest modern Serbian poets and playwrights Ljubomir Simovic He passed away last night in Belgrade at the age of 89.
Simović was born on December 2, 1935 in Užice. He completed elementary and secondary school in his hometown, and graduated from the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, in the group for the history of Yugoslav literature and the Serbo-Croatian language. During his studies, he worked as an editor and editor-in-chief of the student literary magazine "Vidici". He spent his working life as an editor in the cultural editorial office of Radio Belgrade.
He published poetry books: "Slavic Elegies" (1958), "Happy Graves" (1961), "The Last Land" (1964), "Helmets" (1967), "On the Eve of the Third Rooster" (1972), "Saturday" (1976), "View of Two Waters" (1980), "Mind behind the Sea" (1982), "Ten Addresses to the Three-Handed Virgin of Chilandar" (1983), "Eastern" (1983), "Upper City" (1990), "Needle and Thread" (1992), "Eggshell" (1998), "Dot" (2004) and "Planet Danube" (2009).
Selections from Simović's poetry were published in the books Selected Poems (1980), "Bread and Salt" (1985, 1987), "Eastern and Other Poems" (1994), "Learning in the Dark" (1995), "Collected Poems I-II" (1999), and "Poems. Book One" and "Poems. Book Two" (2005).
He created the plays: "Hasanaginica", "The Miracle in Šargan", "The Šopalović Traveling Theater" and "The Battle in Kosovo". Simović's plays have been performed on many of our stages, as well as abroad.
In addition to poetry and drama, Simović devoted himself to writing essays about Serbian poets and playwrights. This resulted in the book "Duplo dno" (Double Bottom), which has been published several times. Simović published essays about visual artists in the book Čitanje slika (Reading Pictures) (2023).
Simović also wrote a dream diary "The Dreamer" (1998) and a novel "Rope with Crows" (1995).
Starting with the book of autopoietic and engaged essays "Kovačnica na Čakovina" (1990), Simović wrote a whole series of books in which he discussed current literary, cultural, social and political issues: Gallop on Snails (1994), "New Gallop on Snails" (1999), "Geese in the Fog" (2005), "Promised Land" (2007), "Titanic" in the Aquarium (2013), "Frogs in Line in Front of the Farriery" (2016), "Defense of Belgrade" (2020) and "Unsalted Salt" (2023).
Selected works of Ljubomir Simović in 12 books were published in 2008.
Simović is the winner of the most important literary awards for poetry, drama and essays, and in October 1994 he was elected a full member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Archipelago, which confirmed the news of the academic's death, announced that it was grateful to Ljubomir Simović for his support and understanding, goodwill and careful reading of our books. Ljubomir Simović had been working on a book of poems "Riba sa dva repa" (Fish with Two Tails) for years. Although the book had long been finished, the poet wanted to continue working on it and worked devotedly practically until the very end.
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