Žarko Kujundjiski
Žarko Kujundjiski (Skopje, 1980) is a Macedonian essayist, playwright, short story writer, poet, film and literary critic, translator and publisher. He graduated in 2003, and in 2009 he received his master's degree from the Department of General and Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Philology "Blaže Koneski". He was a columnist in the daily newspapers "Utrinski Vesnik" and "Dnevnik", a copywriter in a marketing agency, and a press coordinator at the "Manaki Brothers" Film Festival from Bitola. He is the founder and initiator, independently or in partnership, of several relevant projects in the Macedonian cultural environment, such as: the online magazine "Reper"www.reper.net.mkthe award for best translation "Dragi", the international literary festival "BookStar"www.bookstar.mkthe fellowship program "Publishing Europe", the mobile bookstore "Zborče", as well as the online platform for the promotion of Macedonian literature abroad www.writers.mkHe is the author of 14 books, as well as the guide "Skopje" (2015) as part of the project "Discovering Europe anew" by Little Global Cities. He has translated and adapted several works from English to Macedonian. His works have been translated into English, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Polish, German, Turkish, Bulgarian, Italian, Ukrainian, Arabic and Albanian. He is represented in a large number of anthologies of Macedonian prose and poetry. Among other things, his short story "When the Glasses Are Lost" is part of the renowned anthology "The Best European Fiction 2013". He is the winner of the "Stale Popov", "DeBuren", "13 November", "11 March 1943", "White Dawns", "Studentski Zbor", "Blaže Koneski" awards for essay, as well as awards for screenplay and acting at the "Faces Without Masks" Festival. He was a Macedonian candidate for the "Balkanika" award 2021. He has been a member of the Writers' Association of Macedonia since 2012 and the Macedonian PEN Center since 2013. The novel "Spectator" is the first debut novel in contemporary Macedonian literature with eight editions and has been translated into Polish and English so far. The novel "America" has been translated into Italian, while "Sphinx of Wrath" has been translated into Albanian and Bulgarian. The book "Storyteller" is being translated into Czech.