Biljana Srbljanovic - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Biljana Srbljanović is a Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

n playwright

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

and politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

.

She has written seven plays for the theater and one TV screenplay for Otvorena vrata
Otvorena vrata
Otvorena vrata , is a Serbian comedy television series filmed in 1994-1995. Broadcast on state television RTS, it ran for 2 seasons featuring a regular family living in Belgrade during the 1990s....

TV series that ran on Radio Television of Serbia

Radio Television of Serbia

Radio Television of Serbia or Serbian Broadcasting Corporation is the public broadcaster in Serbia. It broadcasts and produces a variety of news, drama, and sports programming through radio, television and the Internet. RTS is, since July 2001, a member of the European Broadcasting Union. RTS is...

during the mid-1990s. Her plays have been staged in some 50 countries. Srbljanović is also a part-time lecturer

Lecturer

Lecturer is an academic rank. In the United Kingdom, lecturer is a position at a university or similar institution, often held by academics in their early career stages, who lead research groups and supervise research students, as well as teach...

at the Faculty of the Dramatic Arts in Belgrade

Belgrade

Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

. On 1 December 1999 she became the first foreign writer to receive the Ernst Toller
Ernst Toller
Ernst Toller was a left-wing German playwright, best known for his Expressionist plays and serving as President of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, for six days.- Biography :...

prize. She is the recipient of various theatre awards, including the Slobodan Selenić Award, the Osvajanje Slobode Award, the Belgrade City Award, The Statuette of Joakim Vujić

The Statuette of Joakim Vujić

The Statuette of Joakim Vujić is Award of the Knjaževsko-srpski teatar from Kragujevac, Serbia.On February the 15th, the Theatre day, the oldest Serbian theatre, delivers to the most eminent Serbian theatre writers, actors, directors, scenographers, composers, the Statuette of Joakim Vujić.It is...

and the Sterija Award.

Biography

Srbljanović obtained her dramaturgy

Dramaturgy

Dramaturgy is the art of dramatic composition and the representation of the main elements of drama on the stage. Dramaturgy is a distinct practice separate from play writing and directing, although a single individual may perform any combination of the three. Some dramatists combine writing and...

degree in 1995 at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. The first play she wrote, Beogradska trilogija (The Belgrade Trilogy), was first performed in 1997 in Belgrade, Serbia

Serbia

at the Yugoslav Drama Theater. After its huge success, the play was produced in many other countries, including Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, England, and the Scandinavian countries.

In April 1998 her second play, Porodične priče (Family Stories), was written in Belgrade and staged at Atelje 212

Atelje 212

Atelje 212 is a theatre in Belgrade, Serbia. It was officially founded on 12 November 1956 in the premises of the Borba building, in front of 212 chairs. The opening play was Faust, directed by Mira Trailović....

. It won the Best New Play Award at the theatre festival in Novi Sad

Novi Sad

Novi Sad is the capital of the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina, and the administrative centre of the South Bačka District. The city is located in the southern part of Pannonian Plain on the Danube river....

, Serbia and was later staged in Germany, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, United States, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France and elsewhere.

In December 1999, Srbljanovic completed The Fall, which premiered in July 2000 at the City Theater Festival in Budva

Budva

Budva is a coastal town in Montenegro. It has around 15,000 inhabitants, and it is the centre of municipality...

, Montenegro

Montenegro

Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...

. Due to lack of public interest, the play was quickly erased from the program of Belgrade

Belgrade

`s theaters.

The premiere of Supermarket, her fourth play, took place in May 2001 at the Festival of Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

. It is still staged in many European countries.

In late 2003, Srbljanović completed her fifth play, America, Part Two. This became Serbia's most popular play in 2003 and 2004.

Srbljanović's next play, Skakavci (Locusts), won the New Theatrical Realities Award, one of Europe's most prominent theatre awards. In the 2005-06 season, German theater magazine Theater Heute proclaimed Srbljanović the best foreign playwright of the season.

Her latest play is Barbelo.

Since 2007 she has been a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), with an additional role as a member of the party's political council. Srbljanović was LDP's candidate for mayor of Belgrade

Belgrade

in the Serbian local elections, 2008

Serbian local elections, 2008

Local elections were held in Serbia on 11 May 2008. According to the Constitutional Law adopted by the National Assembly on 30 September 2006 that proclaimed the new constitution, the parliamentary Speaker had to schedule the elections for local administrative units by 31 December 2007. He...

. She has distanced herself from the party afterwards.

Controversies

Apart from her writing career, Biljana Srbljanović is an outspoken figure and as such very prominent in Serbian public life. She is known for frequently speaking up on various political topics, as well as for railing against what she views to be "the irresponsibility of the political elite in Serbia", "Serbian violent nationalism" and "the culture of violence and exclusion in Serbian daily life".http://www.vreme.com/cms/view.php?id=500496 Some even go so far as to view her work as largely stemming from her political and moral outrage at the situation in Serbia over the last few decades.
Since May 2006, she maintains her own blog on the B92.net sitehttp://blog.b92.net/blog/105/Biljana%20Srbljanovi%C4%87/ where among other things she frequently criticises various individuals, mostly Serbian right wing politicians and other figures who publicly display political conservativism and clericalism.

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