Maja Herman-Sekulić (aka Maya Herman) is an internationally published Serbian author of 11 books. She is also editor , translator and a world traveler. In 2011, she has published 2 new books: Digitalna Galaksija (Digital Galaxy), a book of micro essays about the transition from print to digital books; and a novel U potrazi za Lolitom (Looking for Lolita), currently in preparation in English.
Her previous novel Slike kojh nema (Pictures not Taken), published in Belgrade in 2009, was sold out and short listed for a major literary award, as was her first novel Kralj svile (2000), published in English under the name of Maya Herman as In Search of the Silk King, and is now available also as an E‑book.
Maya Herman’s book of travel essays about Southeast Asia, The Jade Window, was first published in Bangkok in 1998, and republished in Serbian, to a great critical and popular acclaim which contributed to it becoming a bestseller in 2000. In 2000 she also published in English a story for children Lazar, the Lizard in a Blizzard (Waldo Tribune, Southampton), and was a contributor to Skin by Laurent Elie Badessi (Edition Stemmle, Zurich – New York).
Her poem Out of the Waste Land /Iz puste zemlje, Belgrade, came out as a bilingual English & Serbo-Croatian edition in1998, and her doctoral thesis defended at Princeton, The Fall of Hyperbaton, UMI, Ann Arbor, came out in English in 1986. Her three books of poetry Iz muzeja lutanja, Matica Srpska, Novi Sad,1997, Kartografija, Kov, Vrsac, 1992, and Kamerografija, Sfairos, Belgrade,1990, as well as her two books of literary essays: Skice za portrete, Decje novine, Belgrade, 1992, i Knjizevnost prestupa, Matica Srpska, 1994, were published in then Yugoslavia to a critical acclaim. Fragments from all her books were published in English and other languages. Recent publications of her poems in English include: North Dakota Quarterly, “Out of Yugoslavia” anthology, UND, Grand Forks, 1993;The Paris Review, New York, 1992; The Printed Matter, Tokyo, 1992; Confrontation, LIU, 1991; in German, anthology Das Buch der Rånder Lyrik, Wieser Verlag, Klagenfurt — Salzburg, 1995.
Maja Herman Sekulić is actively involved in editing and translating. She was the editor of an anthology of modern Yugoslav poetry (Micromegas, Iowa, 1985) that was praised by critics; her translations of Yugoslav poets were included in five poetry anthologies in English. She herself edited and translated a number of books by major American ( R. Carver, B.E.Ellis) and international authors (S. Maugham) including four Nobel Laureates (J. Brodsky, S. Bellow, P.White); she edited and translated into Serbo-Croatian a major collection of Wallace Stevens’ poems (Pismo, 1995).
Maja Herman Sekulić is also a regular contributor to major Yugoslav publications. She made a Serbian adaptation of Rebecca West’s life to be produced in Belgrade.
She received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton in 1986. She taught at Princeton University (1985–9), and as a visiting Fulbright scholar at Rutgers University (1982–4). She is a member of the International and the American P.E.N., and the International Federation of Journalists Born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, she was schooled in the US, England, Italy and France. She spent 1990–91 in Germany, and 1992–7 in the Far East. Nowadays, she shares her time between New York and Belgrade, and writes in both English and Serbo-Croatian.
