Tanja Šljivar
Serbia
The Serbian author Tanja Šljivar, born in Banja Luka in 1988, is a leading figure in politically sensitive contemporary theatre. She studied dramaturgy in Belgrade and applied theatre studies in Giessen, and subsequently began writing plays that have been translated into ten languages and performed at German-speaking theatres. According to nachtkritik.de “her style captivates with sarcastic metaphors that turn the events repeatedly into the grotesque.” Alongside plays such as All adventurous women do (2018) – available as a radio play in the ARD Mediathek – she also writes screenplays, prose and theoretical texts.
Šljivar’s first novel, Nationaltheater, has now been published. For this, she was able to draw on her own experiences as a director of drama at the National Theatre in Belgrade in 2019. The main character is a young dramaturg who lands a prestigious job at the eponymous National Theatre. She soon realises that this is not just a dream job, but that her work is also shaped by rigid hierarchies, political co-optation and all manner of absurdities. Šljivar portrays the theatre as an apparatus of power that simultaneously reflects the social divisions in post-Yugoslav Serbia.
Nationaltheater. Novel. Translated from Serbian by Maša Dabić. Suhrkamp 2026
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