Jedrt Maležič

Before starting her writing career, Jedrt Lapuh Maležič (1979) translated fiction and non-fiction from English and French, which seems to have left a mark in her writing, as she stratifies her prose, addressing various stylistic registers. Characteristic of her style is a mixture of precise foreign words and specialized knowledge, and her frequent references to literary classics are interspersed with a kind of lucid infantilism and immediacy, which allows for deeper insight into the state of things – sometimes with a gleaming surface hiding the misery of reality. Her writing is characterized by frequent, fast, intuitive descents and loop-de-loops, which boldly combine what is generally kept separate: mythology, esotericism, magical exchange, comically overstretched and caricatured characters, most of all poking fun at her own speakers and often gently mocking them. Heavy Mentals (2016) is her short story debut. The book was nominated for the Best Book Debut of the Year award.