Srđan Srdić

Srđan Srdić (; born 3 November 1977) is a Serbian novelist, short-story writer, essayist, editor, publisher and creative reading/writing teacher. He has published four novels, two short story collections and a book of essays, and has contributed as a writer and/or editor to several short story collections and literary magazines.

Early life Srdić was born on 3 November 1977 in Kikinda.

Career

Beginnings

In 2007, while still working as a high school literature teacher, Srdić won the first prize at the Ulaznica short story competition, and in 2009 he received the Laza Lazarević story award. The following year, he was awarded the Borislav Pekić grant (Pekić coincidentally being an important literary influence

In 2010, Srdić published his first novel, the road horror The story Grey, Gloomy Something was published in English in The Ofi Press Magazine, and Mosquitoes was translated into Albanian and published in the short story anthology From Belgrade, with love (Nga Beogradi, me dashuri ). Srdić's stories have also been translated into Romanian, Hungarian and Polish. It was published in Macedonia in 2016.

Combustions, Srdić's second short story collection, was published in May 2014. This book was also published by the KrR publishing house (Rašić Literary Workshop). The literary critic Vladimir Arsenić, including Srdić among the most important post-Yugoslav writers, emphasises his linguistic meticulousness, as well as new reaches of Srdić's procedure, evident in the story About the Door, which he considers a masterpiece. Mirnes Sokolović has a critical stance towards the book, not questioning Srdić's relevance. In his opinion certain stories are unconvincing, whereas the story Summertime is his favourite. Srđan Vidrić describes Combustions as a radical and uncompromising book intended for more competent readers, which "contributes significantly to the Serbian art of story-telling". Five stories from Combustions have been published in American and Scottish literary magazines in Nataša Miljković's translation.

Srdić's first collection of essays entitled Zapisi iz čitanja (Notes from Reading) was published in 2014. In the afterword to this book, Srdić's editor Ivan Radosavljević states that the seven collected essays "will, on one hand, attract those readers who are interested in the topics Srdić deals with here and, on the other hand, it will attract those readers who are interested in this author as a story-teller and novelist, given that this book offers particular insights into his intellectual and artistic habitus." Notes from Reading has had excellent reception. In an extremely positive review of the book, Dragan Babić states that Srdić is "more than an admirer" of the authors he writes about, and that he is their "excellent interpreter".

In December 2015, Srdić established a publishing house named Partizanska knjiga. In 2017, he signed the Declaration on the Common Language of the Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks and Montenegrins.

2017–2020 In 2017, Srdić published his third novel titled Srebrna magla pada (Silver fog is falling). This was his first book released through his own publishing house, Partizanska knjiga from Kikinda. In January 2018, the novel was selected among the five finalists for the NIN award for the novel of the year 2017, but did not win.