Literary evening: Zdravko Duša
11. 12. 2019
X-OP / KiBela, Ulica Kneza Koclja 9, Maribor

Literary break-fast, run by the Association for Contemporary Arts X-OP (Društvo za sodobno umetnost X-OP) with partners in the framework of the international cooperation project Other Words / Druge besede, a literary circle for small and minority languages in Europe, is a literary evening hosted by authors from the literary areas that are important both in Slovenia and abroad.

This time the guest will be Zdravko Duša, editor, playwright, translator, fairy tale writer, and much more.The conversation with Zdravko Duša will be moderated by Tonja Jelen.

Zdravko (Valentin) Duša was born on November 25, 1950, in Čiginje near Tolmin. After graduating from the Tolmin Gymnasium, he studied English with literature and comparative literature with literary theory at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. He edited culture at the student newspaper Tribuna and Radio Študent. In 1975 he got a job as a journalist at the newspaper Delo, later he moved to Studio marketing Delo as a text writer.At the beginning of 1987, he got employed as an editor at Cankarjeva založba publishing house, where he worked until his retirement in 2014. Among other things, he edited a novel collection XX. century and the White Chrysanthemum collection (Bela krizantema), in which extensive national poetic anthologies were published. He designed and edited the collection of prose for young people Najst and the collections Poezija / Poetry and Čas misli/ Time of Thought (original Slovenian humanities), co-edited the collection Moderni klasiki / Modern Classics (translated novel writing). At the 30th Slovenian Book Fair, he was awarded the Schwentner Prize for his contribution to Slovenian publishing. He also wrote and translated, especially drama, prepared one of the first anthologies of Slovene women’s literature in English and a collection of American drama of the 20th century and published the field of publishing and more comprehensive cultural affairs. In 2012, he was a book consultant at the European Capital of Culture Maribor.His bibliography includes around 70 translations, several book editions, film scripts, and journalistic publications.The approximately fifteen-year gap is associated with publishing work, where he has provided us with around 700 editions of a quality program in three decades. In 2015 he returned to writing and translating, this year, his translation of Neil LaBut’s play Razlogi za srečo / Reasons for Happiness was staged, and a translation of Faruk Šehić’s novel Knjiga o Uni / Book about Una was published. Zdravko Duša is a member of the Association of Slovenian Literary Translators and the Slovenian PEN.