{"id":310,"date":"2020-03-22T09:13:59","date_gmt":"2020-03-22T09:13:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.grozdanaolujic.net\/eng\/?page_id=310"},"modified":"2021-11-25T13:29:45","modified_gmt":"2021-11-25T13:29:45","slug":"%d1%82%d0%b5%d0%ba%d1%81%d1%82","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.grozdanaolujic.net\/eng\/?page_id=310","title":{"rendered":"Biography"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Elaborated by Zorana Opa\u010di\u0107<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grozdana Oluji\u0107, a novelist, fairy tales writer, essayer, anthologist, and translator, was born in 1934 in Erdevik (Vojvodina). After graduating from Be\u010dej, she started publishing at Stra\u017eilovo<\/em> and Mlada Kultura<\/em> already in her high school days. She has printed her first story in 1953 (during the Borba <\/em>contest for the best story).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After graduating, she earned a master\u2019s degree in English language and literature at the Philology Faculty in Belgrade. The manuscript of her first novel, \u201cAn Excursion To Heaven\u201d (\u201cIzlet u nebo\u201d) won the Narodna prosvjeta <\/em>award of Sarajevo in 1957 and was later printed in 1958. It received a sudden success, but also the critic\u2019s condemnation at a time. The piece was later adapted to the theatre (at the Beogradsko dramsko pozori\u0161te \u2013 <\/em>Belgrade Drama Theatre), just to be right after used as a model for the film titled \u201cStrange girl\u201d (\u201c\u010cudna devojka<\/em>\u201d, 1962); it was also translated in several languages. Her second novel, \u201cGlasam za ljubav\u201d (\u201cI Am Voting For Love\u201d, 1963) was chosen as the best short novel of the year (by the Zagreb Telegraph) and handed over to cinema (1965). The novels \u201cDon\u2019t Poke Sleeping Dogs\u201d <\/em>(\u201cNe budi zaspale pse\u201d<\/em>, 1964) and \u201cWild Seed\u201d (\u201cDivlje seme\u201d<\/em>, 1967) have been published by the \u201cProsveta\u201d house. In 1969-70, Grozdana Oluji\u0107 was given a one-year scholarship by the International Writing Program (Iowa, USA). To add on, she also received one of the Fulbright scholarships supplied in the 1982-1984 period, therefore moving again to the USA (both at the Columbia University in New York and the University of Los Angeles). There, she published several papers for Berkley and Stanford Universities\u2019 academic journals. In this period, the author visited India three times, since her works had been previously published there, seizing the opportunity to meet distinguished Indian writers. Her interest in Indian culture and philosophy was indeed born from these experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To add on, Grozdana Oluji\u0107\u2019s work as a translator cannot be neglected (the author speaks French, Russian, and English). It comprehended the pieces of Yukio Mishima, Arnold Wesker, Sol Below, Amrita Pritam\u2019s novel \u201c<\/em>The Skeleton and That Man\u201d<\/em>), and \u201cIronweed\u201d, a novel by William Kennedy. Grozdana Oluji\u0107 has also put together two anthologies, completely different from each other in structure: both the Anthology of Contemporary Indian Poetry (1980) and the Anthology of World\u2019s Love Fairy Tales (2001; 2019) represent a remarkable translation work that has to be noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a long break, the author published a collection of short stories named \u201cAfrican Violet\u201d (\u201cAfri\u010dka ljubi\u010dica<\/em>\u201d, 1985), whose \u2013 almost all \u2013 stories are included in anthologies around the world. The story \u201cGame<\/em>\u201d has won the award for the best short story in the Arnsberg contest (Germany).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an essayer, Grozdana Oluji\u0107 addresses a wide range of matters. To begin with, she tackled global literature, with themes such as: the issue of time in literature; works on Kafka, Thomas Wolf and Marcel Proust; the study of the Problem of personality identity\u2019s in Virginia Woolf; works on Indian contemporary poetry and prose. Moreover, she addressed tale poetry, and the nature of fiction in children-directed literature and, to a lesser extent, in fine arts, mostly by writing essays on the work of Voja Stani\u0107, Ljubo Popovi\u0107 etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the children\u2019s literature field, she composed several pieces: \u201cRose Of Mother Of Pearl and other fairy tales\u201d (\u201cSedefna ru\u017ea i druge bajke\u201d<\/em>, 1979); \u201cHeavenly River and other fairy tales\u201d (\u201cNebeska reka I druge bajke\u201d<\/em>, 1984); \u201cThe stone that flew\u201d (\u201cKamen koji je leteo<\/em>\u201d\u201d, 2002); \u201cThe Snow Flower\u201d (\u201cSne\u017eni cvet<\/em>\u201d, 2004) and \u201c<\/em>The pillow who remembered dreams\u201d (\u201cJastuk koji je pamtio snove<\/em>\u201d, 2007); the children novel \u201cStar Wandering\u201d (\u201cZvezdane lutalice<\/em>\u201d, 1987). She published moreover a great number of tales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grozdana Oluji\u0107 has been accompanied by music (in the form of a musical, the composed being Ted Dreher) in Albany (New York) in 1983. In Serbia, a record was then recorded, followed by a nine-sequel TV series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She won several awards for her tales: the Young Generation Awards (1980 and 1984); \u201cPolitika\u2019s Entertainer\u201d (1980), \u201cDragon Children’s Games Charter for Creative Contribution to Contemporary Expression\u201d (1990), \u201cGolden Butterfly Award\u201d (2001), the \u201cOld Olive Charter\u201d (Bar, 2001), the \u201cLifetime Achievement Charter\u201d coming from the Serbian Writers’ Association, the \u201cDragon’s Stick\u201d coming from the Dragon’s Children’s Games (Novi Sad, 2005), but also the award of the World Academy for Art and Culture (USA) \u2013 the tale \u201cThe deceiver and death\u201d(\u201cVaralica I smrt\u201d<\/em>) being her best tale, in 1994.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was awarded the Order of the Dannebrog knights, the 31st<\/sup> August 1997, thanks to her literary work. Furthermore, she has been an honorary member of the University of Iowa (USA) since 1970 and an honorary citizen of the city of Oslo. She received the NIN Award for the novel named \u201cVoices in the Wind\u201d (\u201cGlasovi u vetru<\/em>\u201d) in 2009 and the Bora Stankovi\u0107<\/em> Award for the novel named \u201cSurvive until tomorrow\u201d (\u201cPre\u017eiveti do sutra<\/em>\u201d) in 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elaborated by Zorana Opa\u010di\u0107 . Grozdana Oluji\u0107, a novelist, fairy tales writer, essayer, anthologist, and translator, was born ...<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grozdanaolujic.net\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/310"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grozdanaolujic.net\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grozdanaolujic.net\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grozdanaolujic.net\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grozdanaolujic.net\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.grozdanaolujic.net\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":758,"href":"https:\/\/www.grozdanaolujic.net\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/310\/revisions\/758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grozdanaolujic.net\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}