Monika Herceg

Monika Herceg, born in 1990 in Sisak, is a poet, playwright, editor, feminist, activist and editor at Fraktura Publishing. She has won more than fifteen literary awards.

In 2017, she received the Goran Award for Young Poets for the best debut manuscript Početne koordinate [Initial Coordinates]. The book was published in 2018 and was awarded the Kvirin Award for Young Poets, the Fran Galović Prize for the best literary work on the topic of homeland and/or identity, the Slavić Award for the best debut published in 2018, and the Macedonian Bridges of Struga International Poetry Award for the best debut.

Lovostaj. [Closed Season.] was the winner of national literary award Prozak for the best unpublished manuscript by an author under 35 in 2018, and was published in 2019. In 2020, her third book of poetry, Vrijeme prije jezika [The Time Before The Tongue], was published, and awarded the Zvonko Milković Award for the best collection of intimate and/or native themes. She is a part of Versopolis, a European platform for poetry

She won several regional prizes for short stories, including Ranko Marinković Award, Biber regional award for short stories on reconciliation, and Lapis Histriae regional award.

She is the winner of the biennial Polish prize European Poet of Freedom 2024 for the book of poetry Lovostaj.

She received the award for the best drama of the Croatian National Theater in Zagreb for the play Gdje se kupuju nježnosti [Where to Buy Tenderness]. The play premiered in 2021. She has won several awards for drama scripts, including the most prestigious Marin Držić Award twice, and the award of the Croatian National Theater in Mostar. Her plays are broadcast as radio dramas on the Croatian National Radio. Play Zakopana čuda [Buried Miracles] was also filmed as an experimental film. In 2022, a collection of her plays Ubij se, tata [Kill Yourself, Dad] was published.

Her poems, individual books and plays have been translated into more than twenty languages. She received the Fierce Women Award in 2021 for her activist work. Currently she is working on her first novel Razgovori s mrakom [Talking to the Darkness].