Suzana Tratnik (1963, Murska Sobota) obtained her BA in sociology from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana, and her MA in gender anthropology from the Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis in Ljubljana, where she lives and works as a writer, translator, and publicist. She published seven collections of short stories: Pod ničlo (Bellow Zero, 1997), Na svojem dvorišču (In One’s Own Backyard, 2003), Vzporednice (Parallels, 2005), Česa nisem nikoli razumela na vlaku (Things I’ve Never Understood on the Train, 2008), Dva svetova (Two Worlds, 2010), Rezervat (Reservation, 2012), and Noben glas (No Voice, 2016), two novels: Ime mi je Damjan (My Name is Damjan, 2001) and Tretji svet (Third World, 2007), the children’s picture book Zafuškana Ganca (The Hany Rattie, 2010), as well as a monodrama Ime mi je Damjan (My Name is Damjan, 2002), a radio play Lep dan še naprej (Have a Nice Day, 2012), and two expertises: one on the lesbian movement in Slovenia, and another on lesbian literature, and memoirs Lezbični aktivizem po korakih (Lesbian Activism Step by Step, 2013). She received the national “Prešeren Foundation Award” for Literature in 2007. Her books and short stories have been translated in more than twenty languages, while she herself has translated several books of British and American fiction and non-fiction.
- Suzana Tratnik
- English
Tip!
The protagonists of Suzana Tratnik’s short stories all share a sense of isolation on society’s margins. Whether non-participants in the mainstream, rebels against it, or its occasional victims, they’re well practiced at recognizing the herd instinct in action. From the six-year-old girl who discovers transgressive new games to play with her glamorous cousin from England; to a decidedly unusual schoolchild inventing a novel way of getting back at playground bullies; to young women who find their love interests drifting away, seduced by conventional notions of popularity and success; to a narrator who suddenly finds herself on no ordinary train trip through the heart of Slovenia―these are characters and stories that deftly and sardonically underscore the phantom nature of “normalcy” itself and the risks of its tyranny for dissenters and conformists alike.