Milan Rúfus (December 10, 1928 – January 11, 2009) was a Slovak poet, essayist, translator, children's writer and academic.

[2] Milan Rúfus was born to a family of bricklayers in Závažná Poruba, located in the Žilina region of today's Slovakia.

After graduating in 1948 from grammar school in the town of Liptovský Mikuláš, he studied the Slovak language, literature, and history in the Faculty of Arts at Comenius University in Bratislava.

[1] Rúfus published his first poems in the magazines Prameň (Stream), Nový rod (New lineage), Mladá tvorba (Production of young ones) and Borba in the 1940s.

His poetry is known for the way he incorporated moral and life values, love, truth, beauty, suffering and the tragedy of both humans and the world during the second half of the 20th century.