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, Neda Miranda Blazević Kreitzman, Ivana Bodrozic, Svetlana Broz, Slavenka Drakulic, Dasa Drndić, Kristian Novak, Djurdja Otrzan, Robert Perisic, Igor Stiks, Vedrana Rudan, Slobodan Selenić, Antun Soljan, Dubravka Ugresić, Karim Zaimović.

She is past president of the American Literary Translators Association.

She has taught at the Harvard Slavic Department, Tufts University, ASU and the New England Friends of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Filozofski fakultet of Zagreb University, and spent over six years at the ex-Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal 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

  • Harmattan, Ivan Sršen

    2023

  • Checkpoint, David Albahari

    2018

  • Fox, Dubravka Ugresic (with David Williams)

    2018

  • The Hotel Tito, Ivana Bodrozic

    2017

  • The Judgment of Richard Richter, Igor Stiks

    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

  • Good People in an Evil Time, Svetlana Broz

    2002

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.