Dr. Zoran Pevac's collection How to Become Nobody is undoubtedly one of the poetic highlights of the past year, as evidenced by the nomination for the Veronika Award, and at the same time, through it the author lives at the peak of his creative powers.

With it, he joins the tradition of poets who, upon entering a more mature period of life, address the last and inevitable truth of (human) existence – death and transience. The subtitle of the collection, which is also the title of the final poem in the book, melete thanatou, takes us back to the origin of Western thought, Socrates, and his demand for constant “exercises” for death, which ultimately lead to the death of the ego and liberation from the primary fear of physical death. The title also leads the reader to Buddhist nirvana, which is sunyata – complete emptiness – and the poems further consolidate the outlined direction.

Thus, song after song, the singer dies to himself through the path of poetic (self)irony – a process that could already be detected in his previous collections, but which he elaborates in detail in this one, culminating in the opening statement of the song When death comes around: »It's impossible to be Nobody,/ when Death comes around.«

In his eighth poetry collection, Zoran Pevec reinforces the age-old cliché that some poets age like fine wine – his poetic language both refines and deepens over the years.