Selected stories translated into English by John K. Cox
You can read the stories in English on the website of NDSU.
Known in Serbian and regional literature not only as a writer, but also as an activist, Jasna Dimitrijević displays her full literary maturity in the book The Fibonacci Sequence. Although undeniably politically engaged, her poetics never fall into the domain of daily politics or pamphlets, but carefully balances between theme and interpretation, insisting on intentions and outcomes that are primarily literary. The extraordinary reception of The Fibonacci Sequence shows readers’ affection for literature which brings to the foreground minority groups, homophobia, racism, decades of bad and reckless politics, and the possibility of reconciling the Balkan formerly arch-enemies, expressing a well-founded and courageous condemnation of a society degraded in almost every respect sense.
Photo credit: Gaby Jongenelen
Jasna Dimitrijević (1979, Negotin, SFRY) graduated from the Department of World Literature and Theory of Literature in Belgrade. She writes and publishes prose, poetry and reviews. She is a regular contributor to the Liceulice magazine. She was a co-organizer of the first regional competition for the best short story on the topic of reconciliation in BHSC, Albanian and Macedonian languages – Biber 01 – and a co-editor of a multilingual collection. So far, she has published two short-story collections, Prepoznavanja (Recognitions) (2015) and Fibonačijev niz (The Fibonacci Sequence) (2019). Some stories have been translated and published in literary magazines in German (Lichtungen), Albanian (Milosao), Czech (Plav) and Slovene (LUD Literatura). She is one of the participants in the project CELA#2, whose aim is to connect authors from eight European countries and translate their work into all the languages spoken in the participating countries. She lives in Belgrade, where she works in a book shop.
John K. Cox (1964) was born in Raleigh, North Carolina (USA). He is a professor of history and a literary translator. Most of his publications, in both fields, are connected to the people and spaces of the former Yugoslavia, with some happy overlap with Hungary and Albania. He lives and works in Fargo, which is a surprisingly lovely little city but is very far from everywhere.