Sanja Lovrenčić
area: Literature, Translation
Key Facts
nationality
Croatiaarea
Literature, Translationresidence
Zagrebrecommending institution
BMEIAtime period
September 2017 - October 2017Sanja Lovrenčić, born in 1961, graduated in history of art, lives in Zagreb and works as a free-lance writer and translator. Her published titles include collections of poems, novels and books of short stories. For the novel 'Searching for Ivana' she got the renowned Croatian Gjalski Prize (2007). Her novel “Martin’s Strings”, published in 2008 in Croatian and German, won the “Literary Prize” of Steiermärkischesparkasse. "Ardura", her novel published in 2012. was shortlisted for several Croatian literary prizes. Her poetry is published in Croatian and foreign literary magazines and was translated to German, English, Polish, Hungarian, Slovenian and Russian. For the book "River certainly does love the flood" she received Kiklop-Award (best poetry volume in 2007). Her radio-plays were selected for several international festivals, translated and performed in Germany, Hungary, Slovakia and Estonia. Thrice she was a jury member in Prix Europa festival in Berlin. She wrote several books of stories for children; for “Four Terrible Fuf-eaters and a little Fuffy” (2001) she received the Croatian national award «Grigor Vitez».
During the residency in Vienna I will be able to work exclusively on my new novel. As a free lancer, I rarely have the opportunity to write in peace, and only sojourns in writers’ residences permit me to devote myself fully to writing, without the burden of other activities and small jobs that usually take much of my time (translating, editing etc.). Since my new text has connections with Central European cultural heritage, the stay in Vienna would be especially inspiring. During the residence I would focus on writing, but I would also be very glad to present my literary work to Austrian audience. I have some texts translated in German, a book published in Austria (Martins Saiten, Leykam, 2008) and I’m able to speak German to some extent.
Short summary of the novel
In an unnamed European town there is a place called “The cabinet of the trivial sentimental literature”, a collection of objects from female worlds of the past: books, journals, manuals, various documents and writing utensils. Its curator is a man in his late sixties who seeks a successor. A number of candidates show up and he tries to get to know them before taking his decision. Each of them brings him a story. So the novel – being in the first place a story about the Cabinet – includes a number of different voices telling of different attitudes to gender, love, culture, writing.