Branko Čegec

His melancholic and neurotic lyrical subject matter can also be recognised in the poetry of many younger Croatian poets, male and female, on whom he has had a major influence. He is equally at home using elements taken from popular music and media culture, as well as with those mainly encountered through reading and in translating.
 
Some of his poetry reflects a “bookish” inspiration, in the sense that that many of his poems, which seem at first sight to have been written spontaneously, and which deal with fleeting, shifting, ephemeral layers of everyday personal experiences, should properly be regarded as bearing complex relationships with other, mostly foreign, poetic and artistic works and creations. His is also a poetry of engagement, in the sense that it takes a reactive stance to events in the immediate social environment. And here his poems may be read as texts written by an observer who is a chance participant (even an unwilling one) in the events which are taking place in front of the reader, one who in speaking of the other wishes to speak of himself as a lyric subject.
Bibliography
Poetry

Eros-Europa-Arafat, SKUD I. G. Kovačić, Zagreb, 1980
Zapadno-istočni spol, A. Cesarec, Zagreb, 1983
Melankolični ljetopis, ICR, Rijeka, 1988
Ekrani praznine, Naklada MD, Zagreb, 1992; second edition, 2003
Nitko ne govori hrvatski, (bilingual Croatian-French edition, with M. Mićanović and I. Prtenjača); selected and translated by V. Mikšić and B. Radić, Meandar, Zagreb, 2002
Tamno mjesto, Meandar, Zagreb, 2005 

Strast razlike, tamni zvuk praznine - hrvatsko pjesništvo osamdesetih i devedesetih; (an anthology with M. Mićanović), Naklada MD, Zagreb, 1995

Non fiction 

Presvlačenje avangarde, essays and critiques, CDD SSOH, Zagreb, 1983 
Fantom slobode, essays, Naklada MD, Zagreb, 1994

Awards

Goran Prize for Young Poets (1980)
7 Sekretara SKOJ-a Award (1983)