Andrej Blatnik was born on May 22nd, 1963,
in Ljubljana, Slovenija, where he studied
Comparative Literhature and Sociology of
Culture and got his Masters in American
Literature and PhD in Communication Studies.
He started his artistic career playing bass
guitar in a punk band, was a free-lanced
writer for five years, and now he works as
an editor in Cankarjeva publishing house,
teaches creative writing and is on the
editorial board of the Literatura monthly
since 1984. He is currently the president of
the jury for the
Vilenica prize.
So far he has published three novels,
Plamenice in solze (Torches and Tears,
1987),
Tao ljubezni (Closer to Love, 1996) and
Spremeni me (Change Me, 2008), and
four collections of short stories:
Šopki za Adama venijo (Bouquets for Adam
Fade, 1983),
Biografije brezimenih (Biographies of
the Nameless, 1989),
Menjave kož (Skinswaps,
1990) and
Zakon želje (Law of Desire, 2000). In
addition to this, he published a collection
of essays on contemporary American
literature, especially metafiction, entitled
Labirinti iz papirja (Paper Labyrinths,
1994), a collection of cultural criticism
Gledanje čez ramo (Looking over the
Shoulder, 1996) and a collection of essays
about literature in the digital age
Neonski pečati (Neon
Seals, 2005).
A short movie was made after one of his
stories and another one was adapted into a
TV drama. He wrote five radio dramas (one of
them, Praske na hrbtu, was presented at the
Prix Italia and translated in English and
Hungarian) and translated several books from
English, Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar and The
Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles among them.
He won some major Slovenian
literary awards (the award of the city of
Ljubljana, Zlata ptica, the highest
award for young artists, and "Prešernov
sklad" award among them). Several of
his short stories have been translated and
published in magazines and anthologies in English, German,
Spanish, Portuguese, Finnish, Swedish, French, Italian, Hungarian,
Rumanian, Greek, Polish,
Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovakian,
Macedonian, Croatian, Serbian, Albanian,
Arabic and Hindi. Some of the foreign
anthologies are The Day Tito
Died (Forest Books, London and Boston 1993),
Central Europe Now! (Archa Publishing House,
Bratislava 1995), Nouvelles slovenes (Autres
Temps, Marseille 1996), The Imagination From
Terra Incognita (White Pine Press, New York
1997) and Afterwards (White Pine Press,
Buffalo 1999), among others.
The translation of his book Menjave kož (Skinswaps,
1990) was published in Spanish (Cambios
de piel, Libertarias/Prodhufi, Madrid
1997), Croatian (Promjene
koža, Durieux, Zagreb 1998) and English
(Skinswaps,
Northwestern University Press, Evanston
1998), Czech (Promeny
kuží,
Periplum, Olomouc 2002), Hungarian (Bör,
Jak, Budimpešta 2002) and German (Der
Tag, an dem Tito starb,
Folio,
Vienna 2005).
Tao ljubezni was published in Croatian (Tao
ljubavi,
Meandar, Zagreb 1998) and Slovakian (Tao
lasky, F.R. & G., Bratislava 2000).
Labirinti iz papirja was published in
Croatian (Papirnati
labirinti, Hena-Com, Zagreb) and Zakon
želje in German (Das
Gesetz der Leere,
Folio,
Vienna 2001), Croatian (Zakon
želje,
Meandar, Zagreb 2002), Czech (Zakon
Touhy,
Periplum, Olomouc 2004), French (La
Loi du Desir,
AlterEdit, Pariz 2005) and Macedonian
(Zakonot
na željata, Magor, Skopje 2005). Spanish
translation of Zakon želje is due next year.
Andrej Blatnik has read fiction in Italy,
Slovakia, Austria, Spain, United Kingdom,
Belgium, France, Greece, Czech Republic,
Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico and the
USA (Poets' House in New York City, Library
of Congress, University of Iowa, Norfolk
State University, Old Dominion University,
Northwestern University, Intersection for
the Arts in San Francisco...) and
contributed in conferences in Austria,
Greece, Portugal, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland,
Romania, Georgia, and the USA. He was a
participant of the International Writing
Program at the University of Iowa, Iowa City,
USA, in 1993, and a guest at the
International Writers Center at the Old
Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, USA,
in 1995, and Ledig House International
Writers Colony in 1998. He received various
fellowships, including Fulbright, the
Austrian KulturKontakt fellowship, and a
grant from Japanese government. He enjoys
traveling, always on a shoestring.
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