Biljana Srbljanović
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Biljana Srbljanović (Serbian Cyrillic: Биљана Србљановић) is a Serbian playwright. She was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1970. She wrote five plays for the theatre, and one scenario for the Serbian TV series called Otvorena vrata (Open Door). Her plays are highly esteemed all over the world, and they have been published and played in about 50 countries. Biljana Srbljanovic is also a part-time lecturer at the Faculty of the Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. On the 1st of December 1999, she became the first foreign writer who received the prize Ernst Toller. She also got the awards Slobodan Selenic, Osvajanje Slobode, Belgrade City Awards, Sterija.
Biljana Srbljanovic graduated in dramaturgy at the Academy of the Dramatic arts in Belgrade in 1995. The first play she wrote was The Belgrade Trilogy, which was played for the first time in 1997 in Belgrade, Serbia at the Yugoslav Drama Theatre. After its huge success the play was shown in many other countries like Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, England and in the Scandinavian countries.
In April 1998 her second play Family Stories was created in April 1998 in Belgrade and was played at Atelier 212. The play won the award for the best new play at the Festival of Novi Sad (Serbia) and was played in Germany, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, United States, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France etc.
In December 1999, Biljana Srbljanovic finished the play entitled The Fall which was premiered at the Festival of Theatre City in Budva, Montenegro in July 2000. The Fall repeated the success of her previous plays.
The world premiere of Supermarket, her fourth play, took place in May 2001 at the Festival of Vienna (Austria). It's still played in many European countries.
In late 2003 Biljana Srbljanovic finished writing her fifth play America, Part Two. The play became the most popular play in Serbia in 2003 and 2004, and got a pile of awards. Many people agree that it's her best play until now.
She remains one of the most prominent and prolific Serbian writers today.
Apart from her writing career, Biljana Srbljanovic is known for frequently speaking up publicly on various political issues. She often rails 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. Some even see her work as largely stemming from her political and moral outrage at the situation in Serbia in the last few decades. She is often sought for interviews in the Serbian media as commentator of political trends and philosophical issues surrounding Serbian culture and political life.
[edit] Personal
Biljana Srbljanovic currently lives and works between Paris and Belgrade with her diplomat husband Gabriel Keller (1947), former French ambassador in Belgrade.
[edit] Trivia
She is related to Radovan Karadžić, wartime political leader of Bosnian Serbs, currently on the run after being accused of complicity in warcrimes by the international tribunal in Hague.[1] [2]
