ALES RASANAU Comments

Ales Rasanau was born in 1947 in Syalez, a village in Belarus, in the furthest reaches of Brest. He studied philology in Minsk before being expelled from the university in 1968 for protesting against the policy of Russification.

Thanks to the intervention of well-known Belorussian writers he was able to complete his studies in Brest, and later held various posts including one at a foundry, as a secondary school teacher, as a text editor for a publishing house and as literary editor for several newspapers.

In 1990 Rasanau was awarded the Yanka Kupala Prize, the national prize for Belorussian literature. However, his commitment to the Belorussian language was only briefly recognized by the officials. Shortly thereafter the pro-Russian politics of the dictator Lukashenko was again to make him a dissident.

His works were censored or simply never published. He was chief editor of the literary journal »Krynica« (Wells) until 1999 but left the post due to political pressures, accepting invitations and scholarships abroad.

In 2001 he moved to Hanover, one of several cities that belongs to a network supporting writers suffering danger and censorship ('Cities of Asylum') . He went also to Austria, Finland, Sweden, Slovenia, and other countries.

Today Rasanaŭ lives as a freelance author and translator in Minsk. He is regarded equally as a poetic authority as well as one of the leading representatives of the Belorussian cultural and literal revival.