Bina Štampe Žmavc

Biography

She was born on October 4, 1951 in Celje. She visited both primary and grammar schools in Celje. After the grammar school she studied comparative literature and literary theory at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. As a graduate she employed herself in the field of education and taught for five years. She occupied herself with music and theatre as well. She was the leader of the infant improvisational theatre at Experimental Theatre Celje for 13 years, where she was director, stage manager and the author of texts. She is a member of the editorial board of the magazine Poetikon. Nowadays she is considered a classic of Slovene juvenile literature. She lives and works in Celje.

Work

She writes poems, prose and theatre plays, mostly for young readers. She started publishing poetry for adults in the grammar school's gazette named Brstiči, later on in Dialogi, Mentor and Obrazi as well. She has written three poetical collections of sonnets, namely Pesek v pesmi, Poševno sonce and Opoldnevi. Among the poetical collections, Čaroznanke (1990) is the largest one; their motivation has the origin in everyday life as well as reality and experiences of imagination. In the collection Nebeške kočije (1994) the author is focusing on the themes of universe, in which everything is connected, the themes of human being and nature; with her collection Klepetosnedke (1996) she returns to a child and his/her playful relation to the surroundings. Among the prose work we can find animal stories (Slike in zgodbe iz tisoč in enega pasjega dne, 1985) and various short fairy tales and nonsense texts (Popravljalnica sanj, 1992, Muc Mehkošapek, 1998). A characteristic of her juvenile poetry is a rich poetical language. The poet invents new words, her poems are rhythmic. Moreover, imaginary words are typical of her juvenile prose. She also writes plays and puppet show works for children and chansons for adults.

Awards