The Board of the International prose festival “PRO-ZA Balkan” awarding the “Prozart” award for authors for outstanding contribution to the development of literature in the Balkans has decided unanimously that in 2015 the award should go to Vida Ognjenović, a Serbian writer, novelist, director, playwright, and diplomat with a specific storytelling talent, whose prose works from the end of the XX and the beginning of the XXI century impose themselves as a powerful potential within the context of the contemporary Balkans and European literature.

Vida Ognjenović is a well-known name to the Balkans literary and theatre audience, in particular through her short stories, novels, and plays, the most famous among which are the collections of short stories: “The Poisonous Milk of the Dandelion”, “The Grandfather’s Clock”, the novel “The House of Dead Scents”, the plays “Melancholy Dramas”, “Somber Comedies”, “Mileva Einstein”, “Kanjoš Macedonović”, etc.
The microcosm of Sremski Karlovci, which symbolizes the contemporary multiculturalism, occupies the core of her prose and dramatic expression. Her novels “Adulterers”, “The House of Dead Scents” and “Bird watcher” have been published in Macedonian language. She has won numerous awards, such as the “Ivo Andrić”, “Branko Ćopić”, “Prosveta”, and “Laza Kostić” awards, as well as the 2012 Ohrid Academy Humanism Award. Her works have been translated in a great number of European languages. She taught at several universities in the USA, and, in her capacity of a diplomat, she used to be a Serbian ambassador to Denmark and Norway. Vida Ognjenović is the President of the Serbian PEN centre and a Vice President of the International PEN.
Currently she is living and working in Belgrade.

“Prozart” award board:
Vladislav Bajac (Serbia)
Aleksandar Prokopiev
Elizabeta Sheleva
Ermis Lafazanovski
Dejan Trajkoski