Milan Rúfus

Milan Rúfus (December 10, 1928 – January 11, 2009) was a Slovak poet, essayist, translator, children's writer and academic. Rúfus is the most translated Slovak poet into other languages.

Life

Milan Rúfus was born to a family of bricklayers in Závažná Poruba. Rúfus was a cradle Lutheran. Aged 32, in 1960, he married Magda née Podhorňáková from Žilina (1934 – 2026), later doctor of philosophy, ethnographer, foreign broadcast editor in Slovenská televízia, who was of Catholic faith, and their only child Zuzana was born in 1961 (died 2023) in Liptovský Mikuláš the following year. Zuzana, who was born prematurely and with severe mental disability, had often been named Rúfus' "greatest muse".

After graduating from a local grammar school in the town of Liptovský Mikuláš in 1948, he studied the Slovak language, literature, and history in the Faculty of Arts at Comenius University in Bratislava. From 1952 until his retirement in 1989, he lectured at the University on the history of Slovak and Czech literature. From 1971 to 1972 he also taught Slovak language and literature at the University of Naples, Italy. He retired in 1990 and lived with his family in Bratislava. On 11 January 2009, Rúfus died a month after his 80th birthday, at the University Hospital in that city.