About

Ellen Elias-Bursac has been translating novels and non-fiction by Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian writers for thirty years, including writing by David Albahari, Ivana Bodrožić, Svetlana Broz, Slavenka Drakulić, Daša Drndić, Nada Gašić, Damir Karakaš, Kristian Novak, Robert Perišić, Igor Štiks, Vedrana Rudan, Slobodan Selenić, Ivana Šojat, Antun Šoljan, Dubravka Ugresić, Martina Vidaić, Karim Zaimović.

She is a past president of the American Literary Translators Association.

She has taught at the Harvard Slavic Department, Tufts University, ASU, the New England Friends of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Filozofski fakultet of Zagreb University, and spent over six years at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague as a translator/reviser in the English Translation Unit.

Featured Work

Gotz and Meyer, David Albahari

2005

Götz and Meyer, two noncommissioned SS officers, are entrusted with an assignment, “not a big one,” but one that “requires efficiency.” Their task is to transport prisoners from a concentration camp near Belgrade in a hermetically sealed truck, in which they are asphyxiated.

Other Works

  • Unterstadt, Ivana Šojat

    2024

  • Sons, Daughters, Ivana Bodrožić

    2024

  • Water, Spiderweb, Nada Gašić

    2024

  • A Muzzle for Witches, Dubravka Ugrešić

    2024

  • Celebration, Damir Karakaš

    2024

  • Harmattan, Ivan Sršen

    2023

  • We Trade Our Night for Someone Else's Day, Ivana Bodrožić

    2021

  • Age of Skin, Dubravka Ugrešić

    2020

  • Dark Mother Earth, Kristian Novak

    2020

  • Catherine the Great and the Small, Olja Knežević (with Paula Gordon)

    2020

  • Fox, Dubravka Ugrešić (with David Williams)

    2018

  • Checkpoint, David Albahari

    2018

  • The Judgment of Richard Richter, Igor Štiks

    2017

  • The Hotel Tito, Ivana Bodrožić

    2017

  • Translating Evidence and Interpreting Testimony in a War Crimes Tribunal: Working in a Tug of War

    2015

  • Globetrotter, David Albahari

    2014

  • Trieste, Dasa Drndić

    2013

  • Leeches, David Albahari

    2011

  • Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian: A Textbook with Exercises and Basic Grammar , with Ronelle Alexander

    2010

  • Nobody's Home, Dubravka Ugresic

    2008

Awards and Recognition

  • National Translation Award (ALTA), 2006, for English translation of David Albahari's novel Götz and Meyer.
  • AATSEEL Award for the Best Translation from a Slavic or East European Language, 1998, for the English translation of David Albahari's Words Are Something Else.
  • AATSEEL Best Contribution to Language Pedagogy, 2009, for Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, A Textbook, with Ronelle Alexander.
  • Mary Zirin Prize, 2015, Association of Women in Slavic Studies.
  • The MLA Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work, 2019. Honorable Mention, with co-translator David Williams, for the English translation of Dubravka Ugrešić's novel Fox.