Ivica Prtenjača
05. 10. 2022
Ivica Prtenjača was born in 1969 in Rijeka, Croatia. Since fifteen years old, he has been working as a gas bill collector, ice-cream delivery man, construction worker, fire extinguisher technician, among other jobs. He studied Yugoslav Language and Literature at the University of Rijeka. After discarding roughly five hundred poems, he started working on his manuscript for Pisanje oslobađa (Writing Sets Us Free) published in 1999. Soon followed poetry collections Yves (2001), Nitko ne govori hrvatski (Nobody Speaks Croatian, 2002), Uzimaj sve što te smiruje (Take Everything That Calms You, 2006), Okrutnost (Cruelty, 2010), for which he received the Dobriša Cesarić Award (2001), Kiklop Award (2006), and the international Risto Ratković Award (2009). From 2010 to 2020, he took a break from poetry, publishing novels Dobro je, lijepo je (It’s Alright, It’s Nice, 2006), Tiho Rušenje (Silent Demolition, 2017), and Plivač (The Swimmer, 2020). His most acclaimed novel Brdo was translated into English as The Hill (2015). Alongside writing, Ivica has been hosting radio programs Moj izbor (My Choice) and Metafora (Metaphor), reading and promoting the established and emerging national and international poets. He has a major role in finding new poetic voices for the Goran for Young Poets Award, whose recipients include now acclaimed poets such as Miljenko Jergović, Ivana Bodrožić, Anka Žagar, and Monika Herceg.