DANIELA ANDONOVSKA-TRAJKOVSKA (born February 3, 1979, Bitola, North Macedonia) is poetess, scientist, editor, literary critic, doctor of pedagogy, university professor. She works at the Faculty of Education-Bitola, St. “Kliment Ohridski” University-Bitola, Republic of North Macedonia. She is co-founder of the University Literary Club “Denicija PFBT UKLO” and also of the Center for Literature, Art, Culture, Rhetoric and Language at the Faculty of Education-Bitola. She is a member of the Macedonian Writers’ Association, Macedonian Science Society – Bitola, Slavic Academy for Literature and Art in Varna – Bulgaria, Bitola Literary Circle, and she was president of the Macedonian Science Society Editorial Council (for two mandates). She is editor in chief of the literary journal “Rast”/ “Growth” issued by the Bitola Literary Circle, and also – editor in chief of the International Journal “Contemporary Dialogues” (Macedonian Science Society), and editor of “Literary Elements” Journal (Perun Artis), several poetry and prose books. Besides her scientific work published in many international scientific journals (over 100 articles), three university books (“Critical Literacy”, “Educational Leadership”, “Educational Leadership Trainings”) she writes poetry, prose and literary critics.
IRMA KURTI: Poetess, scientist, editor, literary critic and university professor. How do these passions fit together?
DANIELA ANDONOVSKA-TRAJKOVSKA: If you are a curious and open minded person, a researcher, if you have a passion for life and love for literature, if you are idealistic in nature and you think that you can save the world by educating young generations to believe in themselves, in their inner strength in order to make a positive change towards the development of the humanity by engaging in creative writing, activities for raising the awareness for social justice with the common people, then yes, you can find yourself in different roles – some of them compatible by the holders of the mainstream ideas, some of them – not at the first glance. Eventually, you understand that there is no such thing as incompatible – each human has a different and a unique story to tell. The world is diverse and therefore wonderful!
IRMA KURTI: What was your approach to the world of literature? Do you remember what was your first poem about?
DANIELA ANDONOVSKA-TRAJKOVSKA: I started writing poetry in my early childhood, mostly for the school purposes in elementary classroom on ordinary themes such as family, motherland, and love for nature. My elementary school teacher was also a poet and he did his best to develop the love for poetry with his students. Later on, in my teenage years I started to write love poems, which is understandable from this point of view, because poets write about things that they perceive and feel in an intense manner. Eventually, I ended up with writing reflexive and philosophical poetry, but also poetry with divergent poetic “I”, because I find myself lately in contexts where my personal “I” is merged to other peoples’ “I” – people that are marginalized and whose voices are not heard.
IRMA KURTI: Which are some of the main themes that the readers find in your poetries?
DANIELA ANDONOVSKA-TRAJKOVSKA: I have a whole poetry book “A Poem for the Margins” (2015, coauthored with Gordana Stojanoska) dedicated to what I explained before. Poetic “I” becomes an “I” of a homeless person, drug user, a mother of a blind child, a mother of a deaf child, a mother of an autistic child, a father of a little girl forced to a marriage with an adult person, a war veteran, etc. I have also written about life of the modern people, who cannot imagine their lives without their mobile devices (in “Electronic Blood”, 2019, 2021), about the contrasts in our lives (“House of Contrasts”, 2019), about the ontogenetic life of a human by using mathematical language (“Math Poetry”, 2020), about the internal worlds in difficult times such as the time of pandemic with Covid (“Walking on an Aerial Line”, 2021), and so on. I also write lucid short stories with oxymoron in order to present to the world the raw face of the reality in us and outside us (“Coffee, Tea and the Red Sky”, 2019 and “Deconstruction of Emptiness”, 2022).
IRMA KURTI: You work at the Faculty of Education-Bitola in the Republic of North Macedonia, teaching various courses regarding the creative writing. Could you tell us something about this experience?
DANIELA ANDONOVSKA-TRAJKOVSKA: After my graduation in 2001 (BA in Education) as the best student in the generation with a graduation percentage of 9.98, I started working as a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Education, “St. Kliment Ohridski” University – Bitola. I dedicated myself to the development of my academic career: I wrote many scientific papers based on the research that I conducted, I attended many conferences and seminars abroad, I also did several study visits at the most prestigious universities in Europe and USA, I worked on many scientific and educational international and domestic projects and taught Teaching Methods in Literacy Education at the University in Bitola and at the International Summer University in Holland. In the meanwhile, I obtained my MA degree on the theme “Methodology of Teaching Poetry Writing in the Primary School” in 2006 and my PhD in January 2010 on the theme “Critical Literacy Development as a General Competency in Schools”. Therefore, I have gone through all of the academic titles such as younger teaching assistant, teaching assistant, assistant professor, associate professor in order to reach the one that I have now – full professor since 2019. On the other hand, I have always been engaged with poetry writing since my early age, but I haven’t been active with publishing due to my dedication to my academic career. In 2011, we founded the University Literary club “Denicija” (me and my colleagues Zlatko Zhoglev, Gordana Stojanovska and Stela Maja Bosilkovska – all of them are poets and university professors) and several years after, I initiated the foundation of the Center for Literature, Art, Culture, Rhetoric and Language that works in the frames of Faculty of Education – Bitola).
Now I teach Methodology of Teaching Language Arts, Creative Writing, Critical Literacy, Methodology of Teaching Early Reading and Writing, etc. Creative Writing and Critical Literacy as two different subject courses were introduced by me for the first time in 2012 in our study programs at the Faculty of Education – Bitola and they were credited with a high admiration. In fact, this is the only place in North Macedonia where they are taught as university courses. It was difficult at the beginning, I must admit, and that was mostly due to the fact that there was no literature in Macedonian language in that field. Therefore, I found myself writing a university textbook “Critical Literacy” in 2019 which is used as a compulsory book now. I also authored a university book on creative writing, but it is not published yet.
IRMA KURTI: Your first book published?
DANIELA ANDONOVSKA-TRAJKOVSKA: My first published poetry book was launched in 2014 by the oldest and the most prestigious publishing house in Macedonia – “Matica” as a collaborative work with Gordana Stojanoska and Zlatko Zhoglev. After that a series of events followed and I found myself in many different roles: literary critic, editor and later – editor-in-chief of the literary journals “Growth” (published by the Association of Writers in Bitola) and “Contemporary Dialogues” (issued by Macedonian Science Society where I have also been a president of the Editorial Council for two mandates). I am also an editor of the literary magazine “Stozher” issued by the Macedonian Association of Writers since this year. I have also promoted and launched many poets and writers, edited many books of young writers, but also books of renowned authors.
IRMA KURTI: What are some challenges that are facing the debut writers? Are they the same with yours?
DANIELA ANDONOVSKA-TRAJKOVSKA: Societies are prone to suffocating creativity with people, because the mainstream idea is to accept things that give results now and here, and things that have been seen as effective. It becomes a habit in a while, and you find yourself living in a world that lives out of habit. But there cannot be a development without any new ideas that are yet to be acknowledged and tested. On the other hand, young writers feel that they can do so many things that the world tells them they cannot do; they want their voice to be heard because they see the everyday incidents and the world in a whole in a totally different manner. Many of the young writers don’t feel that they belong to the world that they should address to and thus they withdraw in their own creative worlds full of vivid colours and perspectives. The most challenging thing that they have to do is to show themselves in their true colours in the world full of loan sharks, corrupt politicians and non-functional societies that build their “democratic” ideologies on the disempowered and poor people.
IRMA KURTI: You have published 9 poetry books and some of them have been also translated into other languages. How did your bilingual book “Soul full of sky” (Il Cielo nell ’anima) come out?
DANIELA ANDONOVSKA-TRAJKOVSKA: “Soul full of sky” (Il Cielo nell’anima) is my latest book in English and Italian language. The book is published by Il Cuscino delle stele in Italy. The book contains a selection of 40 poems on 110 pages from my books: “Electronic Blood” (awarded with Karamanov Poetry Award in 2019 and with the Award of excellence “City of Galateo – Antonio De Ferraris” (Italy) in 2021), “Math Poetry” (awarded with “Aco Karamanov” Award, the most prestigious poetry award by the Macedonian Writers Association in 2021) and “House of Contrasts” (Awarded which Macedonian Literary Avant-garde in 2020 by the Foundation for Cultural and Scientific Affirmation “Macedonia Present” and the publishing house “Fenix). I did the translation from Macedonian into English language and my friend, an excellent translator, a renowned poetess, educator, cultural worker, and a wonderful person, Claudia Piccinno translated the poems from English into Italian. I am also very happy that Mesut Senol, a great poet from Turkey, has written an amazing preface for the book. The cover of the book was designed by Marco Cattarulla with a painting by the famous Macedonian artist Novica Trajkovski.
IRMA KURTI: What does it mean for you to be translated into other languages?
DANIELA ANDONOVSKA-TRAJKOVSKA: My poetry books have been translated in English, Arabic and Italian language so far, but my poems have been translated in more than 40 world languages for the past 3 years and published in many places in the world. It is an amazing experience, and it gives me a hope that people have not put aside poetry as something unnecessary, absurd and avoidable. It makes me feel connected to the people outside the borders of my country in such an unusual way. In addition, literary translation is a very responsible task, because the translator has to have many things in mind during the process of translation. S/he also has to be aware of the cultural contexts that the poems refer to, but also on the places with connotative meaning. I hope that my poems travel all around the world and carry the positive messages for humanity and growth!
IRMA KURTI: What are your actual projects?
DANIELA ANDONOVSKA-TRAJKOVSKA: Besides my teaching and editing, I have started working on my third book of short stories and on my second book of literary criticism. I also hope that I will come to the final version of my book about creative writing, although it has been a long-term project for me started 13 years ago.
IRMA KURTI is an Albanian poet, writer, lyricist, journalist, and translator and has been writing since she was a child. She is a naturalized Italian and lives in Bergamo, Italy. All her books are dedicated to the memory of her beloved parents, Hasan Kurti and Sherife Mezini, who have supported and encouraged every step of her literary path. Kurti has also won numerous literary prizes and awards in Italy and Italian Switzerland. She was awarded the Universum Donna International Prize IX Edition 2013 for Literature and received a lifetime nomination as an Ambassador of Peace by the University of Peace, Italian Switzerland. In 2020, she became the honorary president of WikiPoesia, the encyclopedia of poetry. In 2021, she was awarded the title of Liria (Freedom) by the Italian-Albanian community in Italy. In 2022, she was also nominated as the Albanian ambassador to the International Academic Award of Contemporary Literature Seneca of the Academy of Philosophical Arts and Sciences, Bari. That same year, she was awarded the title of Mother Foundress and Lady of the Order of Dante Alighieri by the Republic of Poets. She is a member of the jury for several literary competitions in Italy. She is also a translator for the Ithaca Foundation in Spain. Irma Kurti has published 26 books in Albanian, 22 in Italian, 15 in English, and two in French. She has written approximately 150 lyrics for adults and children. She has also translated 16 books by different authors, and all of her own books into Italian and English. Her books have been translated and published in 14 countries.
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