Marinković quickly made a name for himself as a short-story writer with the publication of his acclaimed book Ruke (The Hands) in 1953. Several of his short stories have appeared in anthologies in English translation, including the title story from the 1953 work, “The Hands” (in Death of a Simple Giant, 1965), “The Bone Stars” (in Yugoslav Short Stories, 1966), and “Badges of Rank” (in New Writing in Yugoslavia, 1970). When his play “Glorija” was premiered in 1955 at the Croatian National Theater, he was recognized as a leading playwright (“Gloria” in Five Modern Yugoslav Plays, 1977).
Cyclops was a best seller in 1965, making Marinković one of the leading writers of Yugoslavia.
He published another play, Inspektorove spletke, in 1977 (“The Inspector’s Intrigues,” Most/The Bridge, 1978) and two more novels subsequently, Zajednička kupka (Shared Bath, 1980) and Never More (1993), but these works did not enjoy the success that marked the reception of “Gloria” and Cyclops.
Ranko Marinković died in 2001.
Ellen Elias-Bursać has translated novels and nonfiction by Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian writers for the past twenty years. Among the Croatian writers whose novels and essays she has translated are Slavenka Drakulić, Antun Šoljan, and Dubravka Ugrešić, and plays by Slobodan Šnajder and Miro Gavran, and poetry by Tin Ujević and Ivan Slamnig. She has also translated prose by David Albahari, Slobodan Selenić, and Karim Zaimović.
Her translations have appeared in periodicals and anthologies such as Best European Fiction 2010, Words Without Borders, Harper’s, Drawbridge, Two Lines, Context, Playboy, The Bridge/Most, Agni, Granta Online, and Leopard. With Ronelle Alexander she coauthored BCS: A Textbook for the Study of Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, which won the 2009 AATSEEL award for best work of language pedagogy. She has also published a monograph on poet Tin Ujević and his work as a literary translator.
Elias-Bursać is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts translation fellowship. Her translation of David Albahari’s novel Gotz and Meyer was awarded the National Translation Award by the American Literary Translators Association in 2006.
Vlada Stojiljković (1939–2002) was a journalist, poet, prose writer, translator, and artist. He was born in Zagreb in 1938, attended elementary and secondary school in Niš, and earned his degree in English Language at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade. He was a member of the Writers’ Association of Serbia and the Association of Applied Artists of Serbia. He started his career as a journalist at Radio Belgrade on its program for foreign countries, and spent most of his working life at the Radio Belgrade Children’s Program, where he also served as editor.
He is the author of eleven books for children and adults. He illustrated many of his books himself and also provided illustrations for the books of domestic and foreign children’s writers. He wrote ten radio plays for adults and nineteen for children, many of which won awards and several of which were performed abroad in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. He wrote more than eighty teleplays and several synopses for cartoons. He published his work in a number of children’s magazines and also exhibited his artwork. His writing has been included in anthologies of both adult and children’s poetry.
His poem collection Blok 39 was given two awards, and in 2001 he was given the Zmajeve Dečje Igre award for his exceptional contribution to literary expression for children. His fondest professional memories as a writer relate to his work on the children’s magazine Poletarac and collaboration with Duško Radović.
He translated many books from English, some of the most notable being Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, 1984 by George Orwell, Lassie Come Home by Eric Knight, Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, Ubu Rides Again by Alfred Jarry, Pincher Martin by William Golding, Nonsense Songs by Edward Lear, and Monty Python Speaks by David Morgan. He was a member of the board of SIGNAL, an international review, and in the 1970s he was an active participant in the Signalist movement.
He died in Belgrade in 2002.