James Sutherland-Smith was born in Scotland in 1948, but has lived in Slovakia since 1989. He spent his working life as a teacher of English as a foreign language and as a lecturer in Cultural Studies. From 2002 to 2009 he was based in Belgrade on the Peacekeeping English Project as an English language Adviser to the Armed Services of Serbia and also to the Armed Services of Montenegro. He has published eight collections of his own poetry, the latest being “Small-Scale Observations” from Shearsman. Simultaneously in 2022, a bilingual chapbook, “The Bead of Blood”, was published in Slovakia.

He has translated a number of Slovak and Serbian poets. The Slovak poets include Ján Buzássy, Mária Ferenčuhová, Ján Gavura, Mila Haugová, Ivan Laučík and Milan Rúfus with book selections published in Britain, Canada and the USA. Serbian poets include Ivana Milankov, “Dinner with Fish and Mirrors”, from Arc Publications (UK) in 2013 and Miodrag Pavlović, “Selected Poems”, from Salt Publications (UK) in 2014 and selections from Ivanka Radmanović and the Bosnia poet, Nadija Rebronja. His translation of poems by Eva Luka, “The Minotaur’s Daughter,” will be published by Seagull Books in 2025.

His website is http://www.jamessutherland-smith.co.uk and he also posts ‘photopoems’ on Instagram with images by the exiled Russian scholar and photographer, Shamil Khairov.