Ivan Medeši: Unknown in the Homeland
– Slovakia
Born in 1982 in Vrbas, Srbia. He studied pedagogy at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Novi Sad. In his free time, he writes prose and poetry in Lowland Ruthenian. A publisher Maroš Volovár liked his work and published two of his books. The first is a collection of satirical poems, short stories and reports Kvaśna knižka [Yeast Book] (2010), followed by the successful book of short stories Jedenie [Eating] (2018), already translated by Maroš Volovár into standard Slovak, which won the Anasoft Litera Award. The author’s work is provocative, he is not afraid to combine humor with vulgarisms and at the same time cleverly insert intellectual ideas into the work. He indentified himself as an outsider among writers and was surprised that a prestigeous jury awarded his work. He says that his work is nearly unknown in Serbia and thanks to his literary popularity in Slovakia, he lives a fascinating parallel life. However, he feels the most comfortable in his own world of writing.