Mikhas Streltsov

Born on February 14, 1937, in the village of Sychyn (now in Slavgorod District, Mogilev Region, Belarus) into a family of a rural schoolteacher. In 1954, he graduated from Novoelnenskaya Secondary School in Krasnopolsky District. In 1959, he graduated from the Journalism Department of the Faculty of Philology of V. I. Lenin Belarusian State University. In 1959–1961 and 1969–1972, he worked for the newspaper Litaratura і mastatstva and the journals Polymya (1961–1962) and Maladosts (1962–1968); since 1984, he has been head of the Department of Art, Criticism, and Bibliography of the journal Nyoman. He made his debut in 1957 (in the journal Maladosts). M. Streltsov’s work is characterized by a combination of impressionistic style and intellectualism in poetry, essays, and prose alike. Literary scholars classify M. Streltsov as part of the Belarusian literary trend of the “children of war” and the “philological generation.” M. Streltsov translated Ch. T. Aitmatov’s novel The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years (Belarusian: Buranny pаŭstanak) (1987) into Belarusian, as well as individual works by Russian, Ukrainian, Italian, and Latin American poets. M. Streltsov’s works have been translated into Russian, Bulgarian, Polish, and English.