DRAGO JANČAR

Drago Jančar. As a novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and essayist, Drago Jančar is a central figure in contemporary Slovenian literature. His writing has revealed an artistic power of formulating and expressing ideas that reach far beyond the spiritual and cultural sphere of his native country, making him the most translated Slovenian writer. His novels, essays and short stories have been translated into 33 languages and published in Europe, Asia and the United States. His dramas have also been staged by a number of foreign theatres, while back home they are frequently considered the highlights of the Slovenian theatrical season.
Jančar has received a number of Slovenian and international literary awards, including the Prešeren Award, Slovenia’s highest award for artistic achievement, 1993; four Kresnik Awards for best Slovenian novel of the year 1999, 2001, 2011 and 2018 as well as Kresnik Award for best novel of the decade 2020; European Short Story Award 1994; Herder Prize 2003; Jean Améry Prize 2007; European Prize for Literature 2011; Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger 2014; Ignazio Silone International Prize 2016; Stefan Mitrov Ljubiša Award 2019; Austrian State Prize for European Literature 2020; Milovan Vidaković Prize 2021.

TARIK TUFAN

Tarık Tufan (b. 1973, İstanbul) is a celebrated novelist, short story writer, essayist and scriptwriter. He has published ten books including novels and short story collections. His books follow the order: “Kekeme Çocuklar Korosu” (2000), “Kraliçenin Pireleri” (2002), “Ve Sen Kuş Olur Gidersin” (2004), “Hayal Meyal” (2007), “Bir Adam Girdi Şehre Koşarak” (2010), “Şanzelize Düğün Salonu” (2015), “Beni Onlara Verme” (2017), “Düşerken” (2018), Kaybolan (2020), “Geç Kalan (2021), “Aşıklara Yer Yok” (2023)
His books were translated into Greek, Bulgarian, Bosnian, Serbian, Macedonian, Albanian, Georgian, Arabic, Azerbaijani, and Romanian. His poem will be published in a Turkish Poetry Anthology (2023) in USA. He produced TV and radio programs for a variety of radio and television channels. Besides writing articles and short stories for literature magazines, he also writes documentaries and feature film scripts. He won awards for the scripts he wrote for the movies “Wrong Rosary/ Uzak İhtimal” at International Istanbul Film Festival in 2009 and “Yozgat Blues” at International Adana Film Festival in 2013. And won the “Jury Special Award” at the Venice Film Festival Orizzonti with the film Anons / The Announcement he took part as one of the producers. His novel Champs Elysées Wedding Hall was adapted into a TV series.

VLADIMIR LEVCHEV

Vladimir Levchev is a Bulgarian poet and writer and Associate Professor of Literature and Writing at the American University in Bulgaria.He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia, in 1982. His samizdat magazine Glas was banned by the communist authorities before before November 1989. He received a Fulbright scholarship in 1994, and graduated from the MFA program in Creative Writing at the American University in Washington, DC, in 1996. He resided and worked as a language instructor and a professor of literature in the United States for 13 years. He has four books of poetry published in the United States, one in Italy, one in Romania, one in North Macedonia, and 20 books of poetry published in Bulgaria. He is also the author of three novels and four books of non-fiction prose, including one monograph titled Poetry and Music: Four Quartets by T.S.Eliot. His novel Krali Marko:The Balkan Prince was also translated in Macedonian. Levchev is the translator of T.S.Eliot, Allen Ginsberg and many other poets, as well as the Bhagavad Gita in Bulgarian.

DANICA VUKIĆEVIĆ

Danica Vukićević graduated from Comparative Literature and Literary Theory and Women's Studies. Lives and works in Belgrade.
Published poetry books: Kao hotel na vetu/Like a hotel on the wind, 1992; Kada sam čula glasove/When I Heard Voices, 1995; Šamanka/Shamanness, 2001; Luk i strela/Bow and Arrow, 2006; Prelazak u jednu drugu vrstu/Transiting into another species, 2007; Visoki fabrički dimnjaci/Tall Factory Chimneys, 2012; Svetlucavost i milost/Glitter and Grace, 2013; Dok je sunca i meseca/As Long as There is the Sun and the Moon, 2015; Ja, Klaudija/I, Claudia, 2018; selected poems Kada mi mrtvi ustanemo/ When we dead awaken, 2014; book of poetry in German (translation by Matijas Jakob, selection and foreword by Dragoslav Dedović) Schamanin, 2014;
books of short prose: Na plažama/On the Beaches, 1998; Život je gorila/Life is a Gorilla, 2000; the collection of short stories Majka obrnutih stvari/The Mother of Inverted Things, 2017; novel: Unutrašnje more/Inner Sea, 2022.
Awards: ProFemina; Biljana Jovanović; Milica Stojadinović Srpkinja; Kondir Kosovke devojke; NIN Award.
She also writes literary critique and essays. Her poems are translated to Spanish, English, German, Polish, French, Greek, Macedonian, Dutch... She publishes in relevant literary magazines and is represented in numerous poetry and prose anthologies.

RENATO BARETIĆ

Renato Baretić is a journalist and writer, making a living exclusively by writing since 1983;
- works periodically as a film and TV scriptwriter - working as a journalist
- co-founder and, since 2007, art director of the popular story-telling festival “Pričigin” in Split, Croatia;
- member of the Croatian Journalists’ Association (“Hrvatsko novinarsko društvo”), Croatian PEN Centre and Croatian Writers Society (“Hrvatsko društvo pisaca etc; used to be a member of the Croatian branch of Mensa (IQ 153), but was excluded due to regular non-payment of the membership subscription;
- married to Maja, father of two children, Katarina (born 1997) and Jakov (born 2004);
- used to work as a warehouse assistant, assistant repairman of household appliances, assistant tile-layer, sales agent, street stall seller and administrative clerk in a factory of textile machines;


PUBLISHED BOOKS:
- "Zadnja ruka", ("Final Touch")2021;"Jadran Lazić - 50 godina fotografije", ("Jadran Lazić - 50 Years of Photography")2021; “Srcem nizvodno”, (“Follow Your Heart Downstream”) poetic essays in monograph on Croatian county Sisačko-moslavačka županija, recently suffering the aftermath of devastating earthquake in 2020; 2021.
- “Idemo u kino”, (“Let’s Go to Cinema”) an educational guide for schools, 2019; “Muka malog vuka”, (“Little Wolf’s Problem”) a picture-book, 2015; “Split za početnike” (“Split for Beginners”) co-authored with Ivica Ivanišević, 2015; - “Hotel Grand”, novel, 2008; finalist of the literary prize competitions of the Book Fair in Pula, Jutarnji list and T-Portal for the corresponding year); translated and published in Ukraine, Slovenia, North Macedonia and Albania, and published in the original in Serbia;
- “Pričaj mi o njoj” (“Talk to Me About Her”), 2006; (semi-finalist of the literary prize competition of Jutarnji list for the corresponding year); translated and published in Ukraine and North Macedonia, looking for a publisher in Italy;
- “Kome ćemo slati razglednice”, (“To Whom Shall We Send Postcards”), collected poems, 2005; “Kadrovi kadra” (“Frames in Frame”), 2005 ; - “Osmi povjerenik” (“The Eighth Commissioner”), 2003; (it won five major national prizes for fiction for the year 2003 and was adapted for theatre by the Croatian National Theatre in Split in 2006 and by "Gavella" theatre in Zagreb in 2013); so far, sold in more than 25,000 copies in Croatia only; translated and published in Ukraine, Macedonia, Slovenia, Germany, France and Russia; won the reader’s prize of the INALCO institute from Paris in 2017; also in 2017, entered the finals of the audience award at the literary festival Litératures Européenes in Cognac, France); published in original in Serbia; the film based on this book (director: Ivan Salaj) was the Croatian candidate for the Oscar award in 2019 and won the prize for the best screenplay od FEST film festival (Belgrade, Serbia) same year;

SNEZHANA MLADENOVSKA

Snezhana Mladenovska Angjelkov (1977, Skopje) graduated from FDA in the department of film and TV editing in 2000, and with the title “Master of Art – in Film and TV editing” she obtained in 2012.
Her first novel, Eleven women (2011), won Utrinski Vesnik’s Novel of the Year award, and it went through three more editions.
In 2014, she published the film-essay book “Life Convincing Images” dedicated to the films of director Vladimir Blazhevski.
As an author, she is represented in the thematic short story collection “Silent Anesthesia” (2016, Antolog) and in the anthologies “Best European Fiction 2017” and “Contemporary Macedonian Fiction” (2019) by Dalkey Archive Press.
Her second novel “Keep Quiet with an Open Mouth” (2019) was a finalist for the “Novel of the Year” award of the “Slavko Janevski” Foundation.
Her latest book “The People, not the City” (2022) is a layerd, hybrid work, documentary prose, a book dedicated to Skopje, which exists no more.
Mladenovska Angjelkov also realized the educational-documentary film “White book-female writing” (2023) about the role of female authors within the current literary scene and their representation in the educational process, but also how female authors were part of the canon of Macedonian literature.

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.