For those of you out there interested in multicultural children's literature in English, I will start a series of posts introducing English translations of children's books from the Balkans. Working on my PhD made me aware how difficult it is to find information on the net about children's books from this part of the world. This is my attempt to bridge that gap.I decided to start with the book which just reached me by post, generously sent to Hong Kong directly from Podgorica by Mr Dragan Djurišić. Djurišić is himself a very famous Montenegrin writer, translator and editor of children's literature, and he is the editor of Beauty of All Times, an anthology of children's short stories by Montenegrin authors. The book has been translated into English by Dragan M. Vugdelić. It contains 24 short stories by just as many authors, covering a period from the 1950s to the 1990s. The translator notes that "it is the first of its kind in Montenegro..." and has been published by the Association of Literary Translators of Montenegro in 1995. In his Foreword, Dr. Novo Vuković points out that "realistic stories absolutely dominate this selection... presenting authentic experiences, but from some distant past time and without the attempt to come closer to the viewpoint of the recipient child" (xii-xiii). In line with this conclusion is one of the stories included in the anthology, Radovan Vujadinović's "The Train", based on a true story about a boy who saved a passenger train from crushing into a landslide. The act was proclaimed the "Most Humane Act of the Year". Other authors include: Dušan Kostić, Čedo Vuković, Stevan Bulajić, Vladimir Kuljača, and others, with the only women among them Djordjina Radovojević.
If you are interested to learn more about Montenegrin culture you can check the Montenegrina portal.
