Anja Štefan

Anja Štefan is a Slovene writer, poet and story teller.

Biography

Anja Štefan was born on 2 April 1969 in Šempeter pri Gorici. She studied Slovene and English at the University of Ljubljana and graduated in 1994. After graduation she continued with studies in the field of folkloristics and she obtained her master's degree in 1999.

She works as a free-lance writer. She is one of the few Slovenian professional storytellers and the initiator of The Slovenian Storytelling Festival, started in 1998. She explores the Slovenian narrative tradition. As a poet and writer she writes mostly for children; she also retells Slovenian folk and fairytales and translates folk stories from other languages. In 1993 she began to cooperate with Ciciban and in 1998 with Cicido, the two Slovenian major magazines for children. She has received numerous awards for literary work. She won the Levstik Award twice, in 2001 Melje, melje, mlinček (Grind, Grind, Grinder) and in 2007 for Kotiček na koncu sveta (A Corner at the End of the World).