OLJA KNEZEVIC, BIO
Her first name is pronounced Olya.
Born in Podgorica, Montenegro, Knezevic graduated from Capistrano Valley High School in
Mission Viejo, California, before earning her BA in English Language and Literature from Belgrade
University. In 2008, she completed her M.A./MFA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck College in
London, where she received the Overall Prize for best dissertation.
In the early 1990s, Olja worked as a freelance on-site interpreter for foreign journalists covering
the war in ex-Yugoslavia. She also served as an editor for news in English on an independent
radio station, Radio Ship, located in the international waters of the Adriatic Sea.
From 1994 to 1997, Olja was a project manager's assistant for the Danish Refugee Council in
Montenegro. She then taught English Language and Literature at the 1ère Lyceum, a classical
studies high school in Podgorica, from 1997 to 1999.
In 1999, Olja co-founded the Women’s Safe House, Montenegro's first shelter for women and
children who are victims of domestic violence, which later expanded to support trafficked women
and girls.
Olja moved to London in 2005, where she completed her M.A./MFA in Creative Writing at
Birkbeck College in 2008. Her awarded dissertation became the foundation for her debut novel,
*Milena & Other Social Reforms*, which was initially written in English and later translated and
published in Montenegro, Croatia, and Serbia in 2011.
After living in London for a decade, Olja relocated to Zagreb, Croatia, where she continued to write. In 2019, she founded Ženski glasovi (Women’s Voices), a non-profit organization dedicated
to editing, publishing, and promoting young writers from the former Yugoslavia. Under her
leadership, the organization published an anthology of short stories focusing on personal freedom
from emerging voices in the region.
Olja’s special skill has been translating poetry and prose from Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin and
Bosnian languages into English. She has so far translated five anthologies of poetry and prose by
the authors from the region of ex-Yugoslavia into the English language.
Olja Knezevic, a Green Card holder since November 2024, lives in New York City now.
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**Bibliography:**
Olja Knezevic's work includes a diverse array of literary contributions. In 2009, her short story “The
Classroom” was published in *FREEDOM*, an anthology by Amnesty International based on the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Over the years, she has written approximately eighty
stories and columns that have appeared in various literary magazines and supplements. The best
of these were compiled in her 2013 collection titled *London & Stories of the South*.
**Novels:**
- *Milena & Other Social Reforms* (2011)
- *Mrs Black* (2015)
- *Catherine the Great and the Small* (2019) – This novel won the prestigious VBZ Literary Award
for the best novel written in Croatian, Montenegrin, Serbian, or Bosnian. It has been translated
into English, German, Macedonian, and Turkish, with the English edition published by Istros
Books in the UK in 2020.
- *Strada Fortunata* (2024) – published in Croatia, set for publication in Serbia and Montenegro in 2025, translated into English.