Uglješa Šajtinac

Uglješa Šajtinac (Serbian Cyrillic: Угљеша Шајтинац; born 1 October 1971) is a Serbian writer and playwright.

Biography

Šajtinac grew up in an artistic household. His mother, Mirjana, is an actress. His father, Radivoj Šajtinac, is a poet, writer, and playwright. He studied Dramaturgy at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts of the Belgrade's University of Arts and graduated in 1999. He worked as a dramaturge at the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad from 2003 to 2005, then became a professor of dramaturgy at the Academy of Arts of the University of Novi Sad. He lives in his hometown.

In theatre history, Šajtinac is the only Serbian playwright whose play (Huddersfield) was first performed abroad in English as a world premiere. He was inspired to write this play after visiting Huddersfield in 2000. It was first performed at the Leeds Playhouse in 2004. In 2005, a Serbian performance was shown at the Yugoslav Drama Theatre, and a German performance at the Volksbühne Berlin in the same year, a U.S. American performance at the TUTA Theatre in Chicago in 2006 (adaptation by Caridad Svich, developed during the INTERPLAY playwright exchange project of New Dramatists), a Croatian performance at the Zagrebačko kazalište mladih (Youth Theatre) in 2018, directed by Rene Medvešek, and a Bosnian-Herzegovinian performance at the Kamerni teatar 55 in 2018, co-produced by the ASU. It has been performed as a stage reading of the drama project 3D at the Zlomvaz Festival 2011 of the DAMU in Prague. There is a French translation by Yves-Alexandre Tripković from 2018. He received the Sterijina Award for his play at the Sterijino pozorje Festival 2005, and he also participated in creating the screenplay for the same-named film.

Šajtinac wrote a dramatized adaptation of the novel Robinson Crusoe, which was performed by Theatre Playground under the title Life On A Desert Island as a family show for children in Central Park, Riverside Park, and Prospect Park in New York City in 2009; the Serbian premiere as an open-air event by Theatre Playground on Ciganlija Island was in 2003, and his second play, based on a story from the novel, Robinson and the Pirates, was performed the following year.

In 2010, Šajtinac participated as a co-author in creating the play Danube Drama or Awful Coffee, Cheap Cigarettes, which was realized by Wiener Wortstaetten as an international drama project, written by ten authors from ten countries, and staged by the Slovak Theater without home (Divadlo bez domova) at Štúdio 12 in Bratislava.

Šajtinac is a laureate of several major literary prizes, such as the Biljana Jovanović Award 2007 for Walk on!, the Ivo Andrić Award 2014 for Banatorium, the European Union Prize for Literature 2014 for his novel Quite Modest Gifts, and the Isidora Sekulić Award 2017 for his collected short stories The Woman from Juárez, which contain impressive narrations about individuals of global migration and its political causes. The award-winning novel Quite Modest Gifts has been published in Italian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Slovenian, Macedonian, and Ukrainian translations.

The International Youth Library added Šajtinac's children's book Gang Of Undesirable Pets (Banda neželjenih ljubimaca) to the White Ravens List for recommendable children and youth literature 2019. Šajtinac is a selected author of the French drama project Instant MIX, which is supported by Creative Europe. In 2017, his play Banat was introduced at the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques due to this project. In 2008, this play was already translated by Chris Thorpe under the title Borderland, and in 2012, there was a German-speaking stage reading at the Leipzig Book Fair, including a subsequent talk with the author.

In 2003, while still young and relatively unknown internationally, Šajtinac wrote the screenplay for the short film True Story of an Umbrella, a Bicycle, a Bullet, and an Easter Bunny (Istinita priča o kišobranu, biciklu, jednom metku i uskršnjem zeki). He was its co-director and played a leading role.

Bibliography (selection)

Drama

• Rekviziter (Propsmaster), Premiere at Belgrade Drama Theatre, 1999; English reading at Festival Of Contemporary European Plays, Huddersfield University 2000.
• Pravo na Rusa (Right To The Russian), Premiere at Serbian National Theatre, 2001.

The play is about the love affair between the local farmer Maria and the Russian prisoner of war Alexey in Austro-Hungarian Banat during World War I.

• Govorite li australijski? (Do You Speak Australian?), Premiere at National Theatre Toša Jovanović, 2002.
• Život na pustom ostrvu (Life On A Desert Island), Theatre Playground (Pozorište igralište), open-air premiere at BELEF summer festival, 2003.
• Robinzon i pirati (Robinson and the Pirates), Theatre Playground (Pozorište igralište), open-air premiere at BELEF summer festival, 2004.
• Huddersfield, World Premiere at Leeds Playhouse, 2004.
• Hadersfild (Huddersfield), Premiere at Yugoslav Drama Theatre, 2005; guest performances in Toronto (2005, Betty Oliphant Theatre), Ljubljana (2006, Slovene National Theatre Drama), Zagreb (2007, ZKM – Zagrebačko kazalište mladih), Olsztyn (2009, Festival DEMOLUDY) and Vienna (2012, Theater Akzent).
• Banat (Banat), Premiere at Yugoslav Drama Theatre, 2007; incidental music by Isidora Žebeljan
• Vetruškina ledina (Falcon Glade), puppetry for children, adaptation by Irena Tot, Premiere at National Theatre Toša Jovanović, 2008.
• Lepet mojih plućnih krila (Fluttering Of My Lungs), Premiere at National Theatre Sombor, 2009.
• 4 komada (Four Plays, contains Animals, Banat, Hadersfild, Ogigijanke), Mali Nemo, Pančevo 2014, ISBN 978-86-7972-089-4.
• Animals, Premiere at Kruševac Theatre (Kruševačko pozorište), 2018.

Prose

• Čuda prirode : prilozi za odbranu poezije (Miracles of Nature: contributions to the defense of poetry), short stories, Književna omladina Srbije, Belgrade 1993, ISBN 86-7343-036-4.
• Čemer : libreto za krut košmar ili roman u pričama (Woe: libretto for a cruel nightmare or novel in stories), novel, Jefimija, Kragujevac 1998, ISBN 86-7016-016-1.
• Nada stanuje na kraju grada (Nada Lives On The Edge Of Town), epistolary novel, Studenski kulturni centar, Belgrade 2002, ISBN 86-80957-11-9.
• Vetruškina ledina (Vetruška Glade), book for children, Studentski kulturni centar, Novi Sad 2005, ISBN 86-85983-03-7.
• Vok on! : manifest razdraganog pesimizma (Walk on!: manifesto of happy pessimism), short stories, Narodna knjiga–Alfa, Belgrade 2007, ISBN 978-86-331-2655-7.
• Sasvim skromni darovi (Quite Modest Gifts), novel, Arhipelag, Belgrade 2011, ISBN 978-86-523-0010-5.
• Čarna i Nesvet (Crow Čarna and Dew-worm Nesvet), book for children, Pčelica, Čačak 2013, ISBN 978-86-6089-402-3.
• Banatorijum (Banatorium), short stories, Arhipelag, Belgrade 2014, ISBN 978-86-523-0122-5.
• Žena iz Huareza (The Woman from Juárez), short stories, Arhipelag, Belgrade 2017, ISBN 978-86-523-0233-8.
• Banda neželjenih ljubimaca (Gang of Undesirable Pets), book for children, Pčelica izdavaštvo, Čačak 2017, ISBN 978-86-6089-724-6.
• Biće jednom (It Will Be Once), book for teenager, Pčelica, Čačak 2020, ISBN 978-86-6089-974-5.

Translations

• Three contemporary European plays (contains Propsmaster), Alumnus, Leeds 2000, ISBN 978-1-901439-02-1.
• Huddersfield (adaptation by Chris Thorpe), Oberon, London 2004, ISBN 978-1-84002-449-4.
• Postpolityczność : antologia nowego dramatu serbskiego (contains Huddersfield), Panga Pank, Kraków 2011, ISBN 978-83-62711-02-4.
• Съвсем скромни дарове (Quite Modest Gifts), Ciela, Sofia 2013, ISBN 978-954-28-1422-1.
• 5 сербских пьес (5 Serbian Dramas; contains Huddersfield), Ostrovityanin, Saint Petersburg 2015, ISBN 978-5-98921-061-9.
• Skromni darovi (Modest Gifts), Sodobnost International, Ljubljana 2016, ISBN 978-961-6970-48-8.
• Doni modesti (Modest Gifts), Atmosphere libri, Rome 2016, ISBN 978-88-6564-186-6.
• Дуже скромні дари (Quite Modest Gifts), Tempora, Kyiv 2016, ISBN 978-617-569-276-9.
• Szerény ajándékok (Modest Gifts), Noran Libro Kiadó, Budapest 2016, ISBN 978-615-55-1376-3.
• Сосема скромни дарови (Quite Modest Gifts), Prozart media, Skopje 2016, ISBN 978-608-256-003-8.
• De très modestes cadeaux (Quite Modest Gifts), Les Éditions Bleu & Jaune, Paris 2021,ISBN 979-10-94936-12-2.

Awards

• Josip Kulundžić Award 1999 as best student of dramaturgy at FDU
• Slobodan Selenić Award 1999 for the play Pravo na Rusa as best graduation work at FDU
• Sterijina Award 2005 for best contemporary dramatic text
• Second Award for best screenplay 2007 at Film Screenplay Festival Vrnjačka Banja (together with Dejan Nikolaj Kraljačić)
• Award for best screenplay at Prvi Filmski festival Srbije Novi Sad 2007
• Biljana Jovanović Award 2007 for Walk on!
• Distinction of Jury for best screenplay at Film Festival Wiosna Filmów Warsaw 2008
• Award for best puppetry text at 40th Meeting of Professional Puppetries of Serbia, Niš 2008
• Vital's Golden Sunflower Award 2011 (Zlatni suncokret) for Quite Modest Gifts
• Borisav Stanković Award 2011 for Quite Modest Gifts
• Politikin Zabavnik Award 2013 for Crow Čarna and Dew-worm Nesvet
• Andrić Award 2014 for Banatorium
• European Union Prize for Literature 2014 for Quite Modest Gifts
• Isidora Sekulić Award 2017 for Woman from Juárez
• Sima Cucić Award 2018 for Gang of Undesirable Pets