Biographie
Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic was born in Krusevac, Serbia, where she completed her elementary and high school education (Gymnasium). She holds a degree in Economics from Belgrade University. Her early career included roles as a bank clerk, foreign tourism officer, journalist, and editor-in-chief of Duga Magazine. During this time, she authored and published four novels. Since 1996, she has devoted herself exclusively to literature. In 2003, she founded the publishing company Globosino Aleksandrija. In 2009, her son expanded its activities to include film production under the name Aleksandrija Film.
She has written sixteen novels: Public Bird (1988), Ana Maria Did Not Love Me (1991), Iva (1994), Feminine Genealogy (1996), The Peacock's Feather (1999), Petkana (2001), The Game of the Angels (2003), Joy of All Who Sorrow (2005), Observation of the Soul (2007), Water from the Stone (2009), Glance in the Eye of the Star (2012), Our Father (2014), Mount of Transfiguration (2015), And Then the Fairy Came (2016), Salt to the Earth (2018), and That's Love, Blind Force (2020). Additionally, she has written seven children's books and one poetry collection. Since the publication of Feminine Genealogy in May 1996, Ljiljana has been the most popular and best-selling Serbian-language author, with over one million copies of her novels sold.
She is the only author whose books have topped the demand lists in Serbian libraries for five consecutive years since such records began in 1973. At the suggestion of His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Pavle, the Holy Bishop's Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church awarded her the Order of St. Sava for her entire literary work in Christmas 2007. Later, in 2016, upon the recommendation of His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Irinej, she received the Order of St. Despot Stefan Lazarevic for her spiritually themed literature. In 2009, she was honored with the prestigious Vuk's Award for her exceptional contribution to the development of culture in Serbia and the Serbian cultural environment. She also received the Golden Link Award in 2008 for her lasting contribution to Belgrade's culture, presented by the Society for Culture & Education of Belgrade. The Russian Orthodox Church and the Forum of "Orthodox Russia" recognized her novel The Game of the Angels as the best foreign novel published in Russia in 2010. Additionally, she was awarded the Medal of Santa Croce Basilica in Florence and her hometown's highest honor, the Vidovdan Award. Alongside these, she has received twenty other literary prizes and recognitions.
Forty-six of Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic’s titles have been published abroad in seventeen languages, including Czech, Italian, Greek, Croatian, Macedonian, French, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Russian, Romanian, German, English, Dutch, Belorussian, Albanian, and Georgian. Her work has been featured in several distinguished literary magazines and was the subject of a doctoral dissertation by a professor from the University of Nis. Numerous Slavic studies students have chosen her works as the focus of their graduate or postgraduate research. In 2001, the International Biography Center in Cambridge included her in the edition of "Who is Who Among Writers in the World," and in 2005 and 2007, she was recognized as one of the most influential writers globally at the regional level.
She served as producer and co-writer of the screenplay for the film A Cross in the Desert, based on her novel Petkana (2001). She has also produced two documentary-fiction TV films and one feature documentary.
She is married to Milovan Djurovic, and they have a son, Hadzi-Aleksandar Djurovic.
