Sebastijan Pregelj | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Sebastijan Pregelj (Leipzig Book Fair 2018) | |
| Born | 29 July 1970 Ljubljana, Slovenia |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Website | www.sebastijan-pregelj.com |
Sebastijan Pregelj (born 29 July 1970) is a Slovenian writer. He was born in Ljubljana and has been publishing stories in literary journals since 1992. He is the author of eight novels, four collections of short stories and numerous books for children and young readers.
Pregelj is primarily known as a novelist. Five of his novels have been finalists for the Kresnik Award, Slovenia's major award for the novel. His fiction often combines historical settings and contemporary reality with elements of legend, the fantastic and the mystical.
In 2020, Pregelj received the Cankar Award for the novel V Elvisovi sobi (In Elvis's Room). The novel follows a generation coming of age during the final years of Yugoslavia and the period leading to Slovenian independence. It has been published in Italian, Croatian, English, Swedish and Armenian translation.
Pregelj's novels have been translated into English, German, Italian, Swedish, Croatian and Macedonian. His short stories have appeared in anthologies published in Slovenian, German, Czech, English and Polish. The English translation of Kronika pozabljanja, published as A Chronicle of Forgetting, was nominated for the 2021 International Dublin Literary Award.
Since 2014, Pregelj has also written for children and young readers. His children's books include the two Duh Babujan books, the seven-volume Zgodbe s konca kamene dobe series, the Zgodbe vojvodine Kranjske series and the Medo in Pujsi picture books. Zgodbe s konca kamene dobe is set among the prehistoric pile-dwellers of the Ljubljana Marshes, while Zgodbe vojvodine Kranjske is set in the period of the seventeenth-century scholar Johann Weikhard von Valvasor.[citation needed]
The Medo in Pujsi stories first appeared in the children's magazine Cicido and were later published as picture books. They were also adapted for the stage by the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre, where Medo in Pujsi premiered in 2024.[citation needed]
The sixth volume of Zgodbe s konca kamene dobe, Vrnitev (The Return), received the Večernica Award in 2021. All seven books in the series have received the Golden Pear quality label.
Pregelj is a member of the Slovene Writers' Association and the Slovene PEN Centre. He lives and works in Ljubljana.
