Goran Vojnović
Author and director Goran Vojnović (1980) exploded onto the Slovenian literary scene in 2008 with his debut novel Southern Scum Go Home! (Čefurji raus!). The novel became an instant bestseller – it became one of the best selling Slovenian novels in recent decades – and gained notoriety after police prosecuted Vojnović for defamation, for which the Director General of Slovenian Police later publicly apologised to the author and offered his resignation. The novel reaped all the major national literary awards, including the Kresnik Award for best novel of the year and the Prešeren Fund Award, Slovenia’s highest award for artistic achievement, has been reprinted numerous times, made into a theatre play and a movie (the latter was directed by the author himself) and translated into nine languages. His second novel, Yugoslavia, My Fatherland (Jugoslavija, moja dežela, 2012), also received the Kresnik Award, was made into a theatre play and translated into seventeen languages. His third novel, The Fig Tree (Figa), was published in 2016 and once again received the Kresnik Award. Vojnović is only the third person to ever receive three Kresnik Awards in its 27-year history; he is also the first and only writer to have received the award for each of his novels.
