Alojz Ihan (1961) is a medical doctor, a specialist in clinical microbiology, and professor of microbiology and immunology at the Medical Faculty of the University of Ljubljana. In addition to his professional, educational and scientific research in medicine, he is a true man of letters: a poet and fiction writer, and above all a perspicacious essayist and author of journalistic articles and columns. So far he has published six books of poetry, four novels and three collections of essays. The Time of Immortality (Čas nesmrtnosti), published in 2016, is his latest non-fiction book.