Overview

Vesna Goldsworthy is a novelist, memoirist and poet with many years' experience in teaching creative writing and English literature. She came to academia after a career at the BBC and she continues to produce and present radio programmes.

Her first novel Gorsky (2015) was the New York Times Editor's Choice and Waterstones Book of the Month, as well as being long-listed for the Baileys Prize and serialised as Book at Bedtime on BBC Radio Four. It has been translated into fifteen languages. Her second, Monsieur Ka (2018) was one of the Times' 'Summer Reads' choice of best new novels.

Her internationally best-selling memoir Chernobyl Strawberries (2005) was serialised in the Times and read by Goldsworthy herself as Book of the Week on Radio Four. The Crashaw Prize-winning poetry collection The Angel of Salonika (2011) was one of the Times Best Poetry Books of the Year, described by J.M. Coetzee as a 'welcome new voice in British poetry'.

Goldsworthy's Inventing Ruritania: the Imperialism of the Imagination (1998) is recognised as one of the key contributions to the study of Balkan and European identity. Described by Slavoj Zizek as an 'extraordinary book', and by the Washington Post as containing 'enough research to found an academic department', Ruritania is a much translated volume which continues to be taught at universities worldwide.

Room: Queens 221

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Research

Vesna Goldsworthy's research interests encompass the practice of fiction and creative non-fiction, especially the memoir and the hybrid forms. She is particularly interested in the intersections of creativity, national and transnational identity, and in writing outside the mother tongue. 

Her former PhD students are both creative writing practitioners and English literature academics.

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Publications

_{Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.}

| 2023 | 2022 | 2020 | 2019 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2002 | 2000 | 1998 |

2023

• Goldsworthy V. (2023) Iron Curtain A Love Story, National Geographic Books.

2022

• Goldsworthy V. (2022) Iron Curtain A Love Story, Chatto & Windus.

2020

• Goldsworthy V. (2020) "How to Pickle a Head of Cabbage: Short Story", Belgrade Noir, Akashic Noir, 55-71.

2019

• Goldsworthy V. (2019) Monsieur Ka, Vintage.

2017

• Goldsworthy V. (2017) Marele Gorsky, Humanitas: Bucharest, 2017 (translated into Romanian by Ioana Avadani), ISBN: 9786067790931.

2016

• Goldsworthy V. (2016) Gorski, Angle Editorial: Barcelona 2016, (translated into Catalan by Jordi Martin Lloret) ISBN 9788416139972, pp. 206.
• Goldsworthy V. (2016) Gorski: Historia Milosci, Proszynski i S-ka: Warsaw, 2016 (translated into Polish by Teresa Komlosz), ISBN 9788380694156, pp. 216.
• Goldsworthy V. (2016) Gorsky.

2015

• Goldsworthy V. (2015) Gorsky: A Novel, Chatto & Windus.
• Goldsworthy V. (2015) Chernobyl Strawberries: A Memoir. Tenth Anniversary Edition, with a New Preface. Wilmington Square Books 2015, pp. 255. ISBN 9781908524478.
• Goldsworthy V. (2015) Gorsky: A Novel, The Overlook Press: New York, 2015 ISBN 9781468312232, pp. 288.
• Goldsworthy V. (2015) Gorsky, Edhasa: Buenos Aires, 2015 (translated into Spanish by Horacio Pons) ISBN 9789876283915, pp. 245.
• Goldsworthy V. (2015) Gorsky - en kärlekshistoria, Massolit Forlag: Stockholm, 2015 (translated into Swedish by Ann Björkhem) ISBN: 9789187783807, pp. 222.
• Goldsworthy V. (2015) Gorski, Geopoetika: Belgrade, 2015 (translated into Serbian by Vesna Goldsworthy), ISBN 9788661451904, pp. 178.
• Goldsworthy V. (2015) Il Grande Gorsky: Romanzo, Mondadori: Milan, 2015 (translated into Italian by Mariagiulia Castagnone), ISBN 9788804650577, pp. 162.
• Goldsworthy V. (2015) Gorski: Edna Lyubovna Istoria, Obsidian: Sofia, 2015 (translated into Bulgarian by Nadya Baeva), ISBN9789547693821, PP. 215.
• Goldsworthy V. (2015) Gorski, Meridiaan Uitgevers: Amsterdam, 2015 (translated into Dutch by Mary Bresser), ISBN 9789048824649, pp. 224.
• Goldsworthy V. (2015) Gorsky, Random House.
• Goldsworthy V. (2015) Gorsky, Random House.
• Goldsworthy V. (2015) Monsieur Ka,The Cuckoo Press: London 2015, ISBN 9780956644473, pp. 24.

2013

• Goldsworthy V. (2013) Inventing Ruritania: The Imperialism of the Imagination. Revised and udated edition, Hurst.

2012

• Goldsworthy V. (2012) Solunski Andjeo, Arhipelag.

2011

• Goldsworthy V. (2011) The Angel of Salonika, Salt Publishing.

2008

• Goldsworthy V. (2008) Morangos de Chernobyl: Memorias, Pedra da Lua.
• Goldsworthy V. (2008) Capsuni cu iz de Cernobal: Memorii, RG Publishing.

2007

• Goldsworthy V. (2007) Czarnobylskie Truskawki, Czarne.
• Goldsworthy V. (2007) Heimweh nach Nirgendwo: Eine Lebensgeschichte, Random House BTB.

2006

• Goldsworthy V. (2006) Chernobyl Strawberries: A Memoir Paperback, featuring a new Epilogue, Atlantic.

2005

• Goldsworthy V. (2005) Chernobyl strawberries a memoir.
• Goldsworthy V. (2005) Heimweh nach Nirgendwo eine Lebensgeschichte.
• Goldsworthy V. (2005) Cernobiljske Jagode: Secanja, Geopoetika.

2004

• Goldsworthy V. (2004) Ruritania: Anakalyptonas Ta Balkania, University Studio Press.

2002

• Goldsworthy V. (2002) Izmishlyaneto na Ruritaniya: Imperialismt na Vobrazhenieto, Kralica Mab.
• Goldsworthy V. (2002) Inventarea Ruritaniei: Imperialismul Imaginatiei, Curtea Veche.

2000

• Goldsworthy V. (2000) Izmisljanje Ruritanije: Imperijalizam Maste, Geopoetika.

1998

• Goldsworthy V. (1998) Inventing Ruritania The Imperialism of the Imagination, Yale University Press.

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External impact and engagement

Media

Vesna Goldsworthy writes and reviews for, among others, The Guardian, the LRB, the BBC, The Times, The Independent,  OpenDemocracy.Net, Women: A Cultural Review, New Eastern Europe, and others. She scripts, produces or contributes to a range of programmes for the BBC.. Recent examples include:

Radio Four:

Something Understood: Finding a Voice in a Foreign Country http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vh99s

Something Understood: Translation http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p007ry9r

Open Book, with Mariella Frostrup, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02x5l4g

Woman’s Hour, with Jenni Murray http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07fdy11

Radio Three

Private Passions With Michael Berkeley  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08h0cc0

She is also a regular contributor to the book programmes on TV and radio stations in Australia, North America, Europe, India and Japan.  

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Biography

Vesna Goldsworthy was born in Belgrade in 1961 and has lived in London since 1986. She writes in English, her third language.

She obtained her BA in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from Belgrade University in 1985; and her MA in Modern English Literature (1992) and her PhD (1996) from the University of London. 

She started her working life in publishing in 1986, working as editor for Chadwyck-Healey Ltd (Cambridge) and Editions Alecto (London), then moved to broadcasting in 1990. She worked as producer and presenter at the BBC World Service for ten years. She became a full time academic, teaching English Literature and Creative Writing, in 2000.

Vesna came to Exeter from the University of East Anglia in January 2017.

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