Rumena Bužarovska () is a fiction writer, literary translator, and social commentator born in 1981 in

Skopje Skopje ( , ; ; , sq-definite, Shkupi) is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. It lies in the northern part of the country, in the Skopje Basin, Skopje Valley along the Vardar River, and is the political, economic, and cultura ...

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

. Her book ''My Husband'' (Dalkey Archive Press) has received critical acclaim in Europe and has been adapted into several stage productions. She is a professor at

Skopje University The Saints Cyril and Methodius University () is a public research university in Skopje, North Macedonia. It is the oldest and largest public university in the country. It is named after the Byzantine Christian theologians and missionaries Cyri ...

and co-runs the women's storytelling initiative ''PeachPreach''.

Career

Bužarovska has authored the short story collections ''Scribbles'' (''Чкртки'', Ili-ili, 2007), ''Wisdom Tooth'' (''Осмица'', Blesok, 2010), ''My Husband'' (''Мојот маж'', Ili-ili, 2014) and ''I’m Not Going Anywhere'' (''Не одам никаде'', Ili-ili, 2018). She has published a study on humor in short stories (''За смешното: теориите на хуморот низ призмата на расказот'', Blesok, 2012) and is part of the project ''Journal 2020'', a non-fiction book written by six authors from former Yugoslavia born after 1980, documenting the year 2020 (''Dnevnik 2020'', Fraktura, 2021). In 2021 she published the children's book illustrated by Jana Jakimovska ''What the Ladybug Saw'' (''Што виде бубамарата?'', Čudna šuma, 2021). Bužarovska is the author of the screenplay for the short film ''Tina’s Problem'', directed by Radovan Petrović and produced by Kino Oko in 2021. She is the author of the radio play ''Nebenan'' for German radio WDR. Bužarovska's books have been published and translated into English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian, Slovenian, Montenegrin, Albanian and Hungarian. Her book ''My Husband'' has been staged in the national theaters in Skopje (Dramski Teatar, dir. Nela Vitosevic), Ljubljana ( SNG Drama, dir. Ivana Đilas), and Belgrade ( JDP, dir. Jovana Tomić) and has been dramatized in Budapest (produced and directed by Esztella Levko and Zsuzsanna Száger). She is a columnist for the Serbian weekly ''

Vreme is a weekly news magazine based in Belgrade, Serbia. History In 1990, dissatisfied with the media climate in SR Serbia, SFR Yugoslavia's largest constituent unit, a group of liberal Serbian intellectuals, including prominent lawyer Srđa Popovi ...

'' and the Macedonian newspaper '' Nezavisen Vesnik'' and has published social commentary in a selection of magazines, journals and books.

MeToo movement

Beginning with ''My Husband'', Bužarovska's books have been involved in the creation and continuation of the Macedonian

MeToo movement #MeToo is a social movement and Consciousness raising, awareness campaign against sexual abuse, sexual harassment and rape culture, in which women publicize their experiences of sexual abuse or sexual harassment. The phrase "Me Too" was init ...

. The movement in North Macedonia, beginning in 2017, was spearheaded by Bužarovska and six female friends inviting 100 women to speak about their experiences of sexual harassment using the hashtag ''SegaKažuvam'' ('I speak now'; ).

Translations

Bužarovska is also a literary translator from English into Macedonian. She has translated works by

Flannery O'Connor Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925August 3, 1964) was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. She wrote two novels and 31 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. O'Connor was a Southern writer who of ...

J. M. Coetzee John Maxwell Coetzee Order of Australia, AC Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, FRSL Order of Mapungubwe, OMG (born 9 February 1940) is a South African and Australian novelist, essayist, linguist, and translator. The recipient of the 2003 ...

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet, mathematician, photographer and reluctant Anglicanism, Anglican deacon. His most notable works are ''Alice ...

Truman Capote Truman Garcia Capote ( ; born Truman Streckfus Persons; September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics ...

Iain Reid Iain Reid (born 1981) is a Canadian writer. Winner of the RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award in 2015, Reid is the author of ''I'm Thinking of Ending Things'' (2016) and '' Foe'' (2018). Writing career Reid established his writing career by publis ...

and

Richard Gwyn Richard Gwyn (ca. 1537 – 15 October 1584), also known by his anglicized name, Richard White, was a Welsh teacher at illegal and underground schools and a bard who wrote both Christian and satirical poetry in the Welsh language. A Roman C ...

. She is also the co-translator (together with Steve Bradbury) of her own short story collection into English ''I’m Not Going Anywhere'' (

Dalkey Archive Press Dalkey Archive Press is an American publisher of fiction, poetry, foreign translations and literary criticism specializing in the publication or republication of lesser-known, often avant-garde works. The company has offices in Funks Grove, Il ...

, 2023).

Awards

In 2016 she was named one of the New Voices from Europe by Literary Europe Live and received the regional award Edo Budiša in

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

. She is a 2018 fellow of the

International Writing Program The International Writing Program (IWP) is a writing residency for international artists in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Since 2014, the program offers online courses to many writers and poets around the world. Since its inception in 1967, the I ...

in Iowa and a 2022 fellow of the Landys and Gyr Stiftung in Switzerland.

References

External links

Philippe Petit, "Mon cher mari", de Rumena Buzarovska: scènes de la vie conjugale en Macédoine, Marienne, 12/09/2022

Elke Heidenreich – der Spitzentitel der Woche, Heidenreichs Spitzentitel, Der Zorn der Frauen, Der Spiegel, 21/03/2021

Alexander Wells, Rumena Buzarovska: “Patriarchy has its local variants”, Exberliner, 13/09/2021

Daniel Petrick, ‘I’m not nice anymore’: meet the author behind North Macedonia’s #MeToo movement, The Calvert Journal, 9/12/2020

Rumena Bužarovska, A Doctor in Three Wars, K2.0, 15/7/2022

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bužarovska, Rumena 1981 births Living people Macedonian women writers Macedonian translators 21st-century Macedonian writers 21st-century short story writers People from Skopje