When Drago Ivanisevic died in 1981 at the age of seventy-four, he had been writing poetry for more than fifty years. He had also been painting, creating the first Surrealistic paintings in Croatian art, for nearly the same length of time. But recognition for this multitalented writer came late. His first published collection of poetry appeared in 1940, when he was thirty-three; the first public exhibit of his paintings was in 1970, when he was sixty-three. An overall evaluation of his work and the contributions he made as a poet, translator, and artist has yet to be made; but his experimentations in poetry and painting, as well as his translations of French, Spanish, and Italian poets, have unquestionably had an inspiring effect on many poets and artists in postwar Croatia.

A comparativist by training, a polyglot by necessity, and an artist by nature, Ivanisevic was born in the multilingual port town...