DASHA DRNDIC

Dasha Drndic was born in Zagreb. Since 1999, she works as a professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Rijeka, and teaches Modern British Literature, Modern American and British Play, Literature and Film, as well as Creative Writing. She spent some years teaching at the University of Toronto, Canada. She is active as a translator (she has translated essays and studies by Borges, Pinter, Orwell, Gombrowicz, Sanguinetti, Brodsky…), writes radio-plays, literary critics, essays… She visited a number of literary residences throughout Europe. Drndic has published about ten prose and literary critics books.

In 2007, she was awarded ‘Fran Galovic’ and ‘Kiklop’ for best prose book, for the documentary novel ‘Sonnenschein’, and was nominated for the literary award by ‘Jutarnji List’. The same book was shortlisted for the prestigious British ‘Independent Foreign Fiction Prize’, together with significant names as Ismail Kadare, and brought her the ‘Independent Foreign Fiction Readers Prize’. The novel ‘Sonnenschein’ has been published in English under the title ‘Trieste’, and has already been translated in about ten languages. In France, for instance, it was published by Gallimard, one of the most prestigious publishers worldwide, among the rare novels from the Balkans. The translation in the USA was followed by affirmative reviews in New York Times, Star Tribune…

‘Leica Format’, on the other hand, in 2004, was nominated for the awards ‘Vjesnik’, ‘Jutarnji List’, ‘Vladimir Nazor’ and ‘Kiklop’, and it was translated in sex languages. In Macedonia, it has been published by Goten and translated by Milan Banov.

In 2010, ‘April in Berlin’ was nominated for all the prestigious Croatian awards, and it has been already translated and published in Bratislava and Budapest.

Dasha Drndic’s PhD dissertation was entitled ‘Feminist Manuscript or a Political Parable: the Feminism and Left Wing Ideas in the Plays by Lillian Helman’.

NENAD VELICHKOVIC

Nenad Velichkovic has published the novels ‘Lodgers’ (1995),
‘My Daughter’s Father’ (2000), ‘Sahib’ (2002), ‘Viva Sexico’ (2006), ‘100 Dragons’ (2007), ‘Time Hook’ (2011), short story collection ‘Devil in Sarajevo’ (1996), ‘Sarajevo Gastronauts’ (1999), ‘Buffet Knight’, the essay ‘Diagnosis: Patriotism’. Some of the novels have been reprinted in Italian, German, Hungarian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, English, Polish, Slovakian and Slovenian, whereas his stories have been published in Russian, Ukrainian, Spanish, French and Turkish. He has participated in literary events in the following cities: Amsterdam, Banjaluka, Bar, Basel, Belgrade, Berlin, Bjalsko Bjala, Budapest, Budva, Vienna, Celje, Zurich, Chajetina, Dublim, Dingl, Gevgelija, Frankfurt, Gdinja, Gradishka, Graz, Heidelberg, Hale, Istanbul, Kakanj, Kikinda, Konjic, Kragujevac, Krk, Leipzig, Livno, London, Lublin, Ljubljana, Meiheim, Munich, Motovun, Nish, Novi Bechaj, Novi Pazar, Novi Sad, Osijek, Paris, Podgorica, Pozharevac, Pula, Rijeka, Roterdam, Sarajevo, Saint-Nazire, Skopje, Split, Shid, Shipan, Sofia, Svishtov, Tun, Trieste, Tusla, Udine, Umag, Uzhice, Valjevo, Varesh, Warsaw, Vladichin Han, Vranje, Wroclaw, Zagreb, Zlatibor, Zrenjanin. As a co-owner of the literary workshop Omnibus he has edited over 20 books by domestic and foreign authors. He is the founder, editor and associate of a number of newspapers and magazines (Vizija, Omnibus, Alchak, FAN, Knizheven Zhurnal, Shkolegium, Tekstura). He is the editor of the portal Shkolegium. He is an associate of the Deutsche Welle Radio. He works as an associate professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo. The novel ‘Sahib’ was published in Macedonian by the publishing house Ikona, and was translated by Darko Chekerovski.

DRAGI MIHAJLOVSKI

Dragi Mihajlovski (1951), writer, translator and professor at the Faculty of Philology in Skopje. Since 1981 he has published seven short story collections (‘River Beehive’ (1981); ‘Sole Leather’ (1990); ‘Pole Vault’ (1994); ‘Tripolian Gate’ (1999);‘Stories from the Sixth Floor’ (2003) and “The Butterfly Catcher” (2010),
and ‘In the Land of Cannibals’ (2014), four novels: (‘The Prophet from This Country’ (2001); ‘The Death of the Scrivener (2002),
‘My Scenderbeg’ (2006) and “Bajezed and Olivera” (2009)), two books for children (‘The Wonderful Pot and Other Fairy Tales’ (1995) and ‘The Poor Man and the Skylark’ (2000), as well as two studies in the area of translation (‘Uncrucified Gods’ (1991) and ‘Under Babel: The Task of the Translator’ (2002)). He has translated from English into Macedonian more than 110.000 lines among which 37 Plays and 154 sonnets by Shakespeare, the epic ‘Paradise Lost’ by Milton, the epic Beowulf by anonymous writer, and prose by Toni Morison, Kenzaburo Oe, I. B. White, Stoyan Christow and many others. He has been awarded the highest literary recognitions in Macedonia, among which ‘Ratzin Award’ (twice 1996 and 2013); ‘Stale Popov‘ (twice 2002 and 2006), ‘Kiril Pejchinovich’ award (2009). For the translation of Shakespeare’s works he was presented with the recognitions by Nova Makedonia newspaper, MRTV, and Bitola newspaper. He is member of the Writers’ Association of Macedonia, Macedonian PEN Center, and the International Writers’ Association for Peace, Washington D.C., USA.

MARIO LEVI

Born in 1957, Levi graduated from the Istanbul University Faculty of Literature in 1980 with a degree in French language and literature.
In addition to being a writer, Levi has worked as a French teacher,
an importer, a journalist, a radio programmer, and a copywriter.
He currently gives lectures in Yeditepe University.

He is author of the books Not Being Able to Go to a City (Bir Şehre Gidememek) Haldun Taner Story Award, 1990, stories, Madame Floridis May not Return (Madam Floridis Dönmeyebilir), 1991, stories Our Best Love Story (En Güzel Aşk Hikayemiz), 1992, novel. Funfair Closed (Lunapark Kapandı), 2005, novel, My Istanbul Photographs (İçimdeki İstanbul Fotoğrafları), 2010, novel, I’ve Baked You A Cake- 2013 October, Istanbul was a Fairy Tale, Where Were You When Darkness Fell. He is translated in Italian, Arabic, Albanian, Bulgarian, Georgian, German, Romanian, Spanish, Bosnian, Chinese, Croatian, Danish, French, Greek, Hungarian, Macedonian, Polish and English language. Three of his books have been translated and published by the prominent German publisher Suhrkamp, and were translated in English by Dalkey Archive. The acclaimed novel ‘Istanbul was a Fairy Tale’ has been translated in Macedonian by Gjulnihal Ismail and published by Ili-Ili.

SLOBODAN SHIJAN

Slobodan Shijan (1946, Belgrade) is a film director, scriptwriter, writer, publicist, painter and a multimedia artist. He was the author
of several best known Serbian movies
and a series of publications and books on film and visual culture.
He wrote the poetic prose for the famous Alfred Hitchcock’s film ‘Vertigo’, published by Geopoetika. Shijan has published a number
of books on film, among which the book dedicated to John Ford.
He published ‘Film Leaflet’ during the 70s, together with new essays on the film in the book entitled ‘Film Leaflet (1976-1979) and Commentaries’, and in 2013, he was awarded with the prestigious recognition for ‘Cinema Volume’, for the best publicistic book by Jutarnji List, Croatia.
He was the director of some of the best known films in Ex Yugoslavia, such as ‘Who's That Singing Over There’, ‘The Marathon Family’, ‘How I Was Systematically Destroyed by an Idiot’, ‘Strangler vs Strangler’, ‘Secret Ingredient’, ‘Poor Little Hampsters’ and ‘Save Our Souls’, as well as of a number of TV films, and over twenty experimental films and videos. In the period 1990-91 he was the manager of the Yugoslavian Filmlibrary in Belgrade. Slobodan Shijan has been awarded with a number of domestic and international recognitions for his films.
The Contemporary Art Museum in Belgrade, in 2009, organized an exhibition of his art and multimedia works entitled ‘Slobodan Shijan: On Film’, which was proclaimed - Exhibition of the Year, by the Association of Art Historians in Serbia. Shijan was presented with the award Avantgarde Tradition, for his contribution to the avant-garde art. Shijan taught film directing at the Faculty of Dramatic Art and the Arts Academy in Belgrade, as well as at the University Loloya Marymount in Los Angeles, and the prominent Film School at the South California University in Los Angeles.

ALESH CHAR

Alesh Char was born in 1971 in Idrija. He studied comparative literature at the Faculty of Philosophy in Ljubljana. He is an editor, scriptwriter, article writer and novelist. He was the initiator and Editor-in-Chief of the international cultural magazine Balkanis, as well as an author and host of the cultural talk show The Fifth Element at the national television (2002-2003). Since December 2004 to April 2009 he was the editor in charge for culture in the daily newspaper Dnevnik, and in the period from May 2009 to June 2010 he was the editor of the Saturday Column ‘From the Object Lens’ in Dnevnik. In 2012, he was the manager of the programme cycle ‘Life in touch’ within the European Cultural Capital in Maribor 2012. He has published three novels and two collections of stories. His prose works have been translated in ten languages. His ‘Made in Slovenia’ has been translated in Macedonian by Dragana Evtimova, and was published by Magor.