Izdavačka kuća Geopoetika, uz pomoć Ministarstva kulture Republike Srbije, pokrenula je ediciju Serbian Prose in Translation/ Srpska proza u prevodu.
Ovaj projekat podrazumeva kontinuirano, sistematsko i organizovano objavljivanje dela savremenih srpskih pisaca na strane jezike, za početak na engleski, i na taj način predstavlja širenje srpske kulture u svetu.
Knjige iz ove edicije prodavaće se isključivo na srpskom tržištu. Međutim, mnogo veći značaj leži u tome što će se one naći u slavističkim centrima, bibliotekama i univerzitetima širom sveta, i na stranom jeziku predstavljati sve što je relevantno u srpskoj knjiiževnosti na najznačajnijim svetskim sajmovima knjiga. Izuzetna dela savremene srpske književnosti, potpuno nepravedno nedovoljno zastupljena u svetu, uz najviši mogući kvalitet prevoda, postaće konačno dostupna i izvan naših granica.
Solitude is a wonderful thing if you can handle it, says the author of Lake Como, relying on his own experience of living in a voluntarily chosen margin. When his hero, a novelist, receives a Rockefeller scholarship to spend a month in Villa Maranese in Bellagio on Lake Como, he is bound to reconsider his measure of things, to find his place in a world of whose existence he was not aware of before. In his work, Valjarević is uncompromisingly open and honest both to others and to himself - no wonder his readers trust him and understand his need to be who he is, any time, at any cost. Be it in Belgrade, Bellagio or on the Island of Korčula, he keeps his mind open and the membrane of his identity permeable but firm. And because of this, the hero of the novel is able to have fun and enjoy in the fine things of this fleeting life. Because of this, solitude becomes him perfectly.
For Lake Como, Srđan Valjarević received the Eastern European literary award "Bank Austria Literaris 2008".
"I can only write about what I know well, and the way I see things. And that's the way I see them, every person and every story is at the same time humorous and difficult, and so is life... And in this world as it is, the biggest human tragedy, people can only be funny and ludicrous in the way they do things and the things they do. And of course, I see myself at the head of all the funny people, and that is the easiest way for me, but also the most exciting one. It's the only story I know."
Srdjan Valjarevic in an Interview to B92
Srdjan Valjarević was born in Belgrade in 1967. He is an award-winning author who had his literary debut at the beginning of the 1990s, with the novel List na korici hleba (Leaf on a Bread Crust, 1990). An acute observer of the tumultuous end of the century, Balkan style, he serves his readers an economic narration, a fiction which probes into the heart of the crucial questions of his generation: exile, solitude and identity. His other novels include Ljudi za stolom (People at the Table, 1994), Zimski dnevnik (Winter Diary, 1995), Dnevnik druge zime (The Diary of Another Winter, 2005), as well as books of poetry Džo Frejzer i 49 pesama (Joe Frazier and 49 poems, 1997) and Džo Frejzer i 49 (+24) pesama (Joe Frazier and 49 (+24) poems, 1997).
For his novels The Diary of Another Winter and Lake Como he was awarded Bank Austria Literaris Prize (the former was listed among top ten novels of Southeastern Europe in 2006; the latter was elected second from 25 short-listed out of 800). His works can be read in Swedish, French and German.
