Drago Štambuk

Drago Štambuk (20 September 1950^[1]) is a Croatian physician, poet, essayist and an ambassador.

Štambuk was born in Selca on the island of Brač. He attended the gymnasium in Split, and the University of Zagreb School of Medicine.

Career

He specialised in internal medicine, gastroenterology and hepatology in Zagreb, but worked and lived in London since 1983, where he was engaged in research of the diseases of liver and AIDS.^[1] At that early stage of awareness of HIV/AIDS, Dr. Štambuk was among the first researchers deeply engaged in trying to understand the now widely known and ubiquitous disease.

After Croatia declared its independence in 1991, he turned to diplomacy. In the sensitive period from 1991 until 1994, he served as the plenipotentiary of the newly independent Croatia to the United Kingdom. Afterwards, he became Croatia's ambassador in India and Sri Lanka (1995–1998), Egypt (1998–2000) and a number of Arab countries. Štambuk was a visiting professor at Harvard University from 2001 to 2002, and became a fellow of the Harvard's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.^[1] Since 2002, he has served as ambassador to Japan and South Korea (2005–2010), from 2011 to Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela and since 2019 to Iran.

Poetry

Štambuk is a popular poet in Croatia, having published more than 70 books of poetry, which have been widely translated,^[2] and is regarded one of the leading Croatian contemporary poets. Raymond Carver named him "a real poet".^[3][4] His English books include Incompatible animals (1995), Black wave (2009), And the sea is no more (2011), as well as contributions to the magazine Ploughshares; "Language of dismemberement/Loghat al-tamazzuq" (2000) in Arabic, "El viento de las estrellas oscuras"(2003) in Spanish with the foreword by Antonio Skármeta, "Pierre Nocturne" (2009) in French with a foreword by Guillaume Métayer, "Black wave/Kuroi nami" (2009) and "From nowhere/Museki yori" (2011) in English and Japanese, "Céu no poço" (2014), "Criação inacabada do mundo" (2015) and "O mar não está mais" (2016) in Portuguese; "Historia" (foreword Alfredo Perez Alencart), Trilce Ediciones, Salamanca, 2018; "El ruiseñor y la fortaleza" (foreword and translation Carmen Vrljicak), Krivodolpress, Buenos Aires, 2018. in Spanish. He has been granted many international and national literary, arts and peace awards.

Honors

•   Order of the Rising Sun, 2nd Class, Gold and Silver Star (2019)

Notes and references

1. "Štambuk, dr. Drago". mvep.hr (in Croatian). Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs. Retrieved March 17, 2019.
2. Iter alia award-winning translated by Francis R. Jones.
3. Haiku Consciousness: Drago Štambuk (PDF). The International Academic Forum. 2014. ISBN 978-4-907131-04-3. Retrieved 9 December 2020.
4. Bach, Nenad. "Tess Gallagher's speech at a presentation of Drago Stambuk's poetry in Pula". croatia.org. Retrieved 9 December 2020.

Further reading

• Vuković Runjić, Milana (23 December 2004), "Srce, taj pjesnički organ", Vijenac (in Croatian).
• Štambuk, Drago (January 15, 2009), "Danas je istina u egzilu", Vijenac (in Croatian) (399)
• Metayer, Guillaume (November 4, 2009), "Etika pažnje (Pierre Nocture / Noćni kamen), Paris 2009", Vijenac (in Croatian) (409)
• Gaborro, Allen (February 26, 2010), , Ambassadeur, archived from the original on July 22, 2011
• Gallagher, Tess (January 14, 2008), "Tess Gallagher's speech at presentation of Drago Štambuk's poetry in Pula", Croatian World Network
• Ishiai, Tsutomu (March 16, 2010), , Asahi Shimbun (in Japanese), archived from the original on March 22, 2010, retrieved March 16, 2010
• Štambuk, Drago (25 June 2010), "Croatia-Japan, a beautiful friendship" (PDF), The Japan Times, The Japan Times.
• Štambuk, Drago (22 August 2011), "Haiku Consciousness", IAFOR Keynotes, IAFOR.
• Šarac, Damir (2 August 2012), CROATIA REDIVIVA Kaj, ča i što - ravnopravni su (in Croatian), Slobodna Dalmacija.
• Fišer, Ernest (5 September 2013), "Svehrvatska pjesnička smotra", Vijenac.
• Croatian Writers' Association (16 April 2014), "Međunarodna nagrada Vladimir Devide za HAIKU", Croatian Writers' Association.
• Večernji list (4 June 2014), "Pročitajte emotivan govor veleposlanika Štambuka hrvatskim nogometašima", Večernji list.
• Soares, Jô (6 June 2014), "Embaixador da Croácia aposta no Brasil no primeiro jogo da Copa do Mundo", GShow.
• Večernji list (8 June 2014), "Brazilski Letterman: Nikada se nisam osjećao većom neznalicom nego slušajući hrvatski", Večernji list.
• Tavares, Vinícius (11 June 2014), "Embaixador da Croácia aposta em empate na estreia e sonha com final contra Brasil no Maracanã", Olhar Copa.
• Večernji list (18 June 2014), "Biseri hrvatske vokalne glazbe u glasovitom Teatro Amazonas", Večernji list.
• TheBooksMovie (5 March 2019), "Historia, Drago Stambuk", YouTube, archived from the original on 2021-12-15.
• Hrvatski Sabor (29 July 2019), "Potpredsjednik Sabora Reiner na svečanosti dodjele japanskog odličja veleposlaniku Dragi Štambuku", Hrvatski Sabor.
• Embassy of the Republic of Croatia, Tokyo (in Croatian and English)