Biljana Srbljanović (, ; born 15 October 1970) is a Serbian playwright and university professor.
She has written eleven theater plays and screenplay for Otvorena vrata television series that aired on Radio Television of Serbia during the mid-1990s. Her plays have been staged in some 50 countries. Srbljanović is also a part-time lecturer at the University of Arts' Faculty of Dramatic Arts (FDU) in Belgrade. On 1 December 1999, she became the first non-German writer to receive the . She is the recipient of various theatre awards in Serbia, including the , , , Joakim Vujić Statuette, and . Furthermore, she received the 2003 , an annual accolade given out by the Serbian Civic Alliance (GSS) political party to women for "contributions in promotion of human rights, democracy, and tolerance in political communication".
In 2007, she was awarded the IX Europe Prize Theatrical Realities, in Thessaloniki.
Early life
Srbljanović was born on 15 October 1970 in Stockholm whereto her father Danilo Srbljanović had arrived a few years earlier during late 1960s as gastarbeiter from SFR Yugoslavia in search of better employment opportunities. He would soon be joined by his girlfriend Miroslava Simić who came over from Yugoslavia. The couple wed in the Yugoslav embassy in Stockholm—a civil ceremony presided over by ambassador Vladimir Rolović—and had their daughter Biljana. In April 1971, months after her parents' wedding, the embassy was attacked by a group of Croatian Ustashe-affiliated terrorists led by Miro Barešić who assassinated ambassador Rolović.
Writing career
Srbljanović obtained her dramaturgy degree in 1995 at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. The first play she wrote, Beogradska trilogija (The Belgrade Trilogy), was premiered in 1997 in Belgrade, Serbia at the Yugoslav Drama Theater. After its huge success, the play was staged in many other countries, including Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, England, and the Scandinavian countries.
In April 1998 her second play, Porodične priče (Family Stories), was written in Belgrade and staged at Atelje 212. It won the Best New Play Award at the theatre festival in Novi Sad, Serbia and was later staged in Germany, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, United States, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France and elsewhere.
In December 1999, Srbljanović completed The Fall, which premiered in July 2000 at the City Theater Festival in Budva, Montenegro. Due to lack of public interest, the play was quickly erased from the program of Belgrade's theaters.
The young artist can also be seen in the Serbian movie Land of Truth, Love and Freedom (Zemlja istine ljubavi i slobode) as an actress in a leading role.
The premiere of Supermarket, her fourth play, took place in May 2001 at the Festival of Vienna, Austria. It is still staged in many European countries.
In late 2003, Srbljanović completed her fifth play, America, Part Two. This became Serbia's most popular play in 2003 and 2004.
Srbljanović's next play, Skakavci (Locusts), won the New Theatrical Realities Award, one of Europe's most prominent theatre awards. In the 2005-06 season, German theater magazine Theater Heute proclaimed Srbljanović the best foreign playwright of the season.
Her latest play This Grave Is Too Small For Me has attracted international press attention as well as acclaim from various audiences in Europe.