The works of Tihomir Janchovski represent social critique, existential reflection, a dive and exploration into human emotions, reflecting the complexity of the individual’s condition in a world full of despair and disappointment.
Biography
Tihomir Janchovski, poet, professor, prose writer, translator, and columnist. Born in 1967 in Skopje. One of the most widely read authors in his country, winner of the “Golden Ladybug of Popularity 2024,” an award in Macedonia usually reserved only for actors and pop artists. He graduated in General and Comparative Literature (1991), specialized in Medieval Studies (1996), and earned a Master’s degree in Contemporary History (2008). He has lived in Skopje, Brussels, the island of Skiathos in Greece, Amsterdam, London, and Budapest. He has worked as a journalist, musician, hotel room attendant, gardener, columnist, translator, and professor of literature, academic writing, and world history. He has published sixteen books of poetry, three novels, two children’s books, and one collection of columns. He is also the author of around twenty literary translations. He now works exclusively as a writer and translator. He lives in Skopje and in Skopska Crna Gora, living off literature. Since 2021 he has been a professional writer, the only one in Macedonia. Since 2024 he has also been preparing and performing music-poetry performances (poetic theater) together with Branislav Nikolov, in the project ‘The Wolf of Love.
He has not received domestic or international literary awards or recognitions, because of his character and personal views, as he considers awards meaningless. Literary art cannot and must not be a competition, and true evaluation of the value of works requires distance in time, not participation in contests – he believes.
He has participated in numerous festivals in Macedonia, the Balkans, and throughout Europe. Selections of his poetry have been translated and published in many renowned literary journals. His work has been translated into 16 languages: English, French, Slovak, Serbian, Croatian, Albanian, Bosnian, Greek, German, Georgian, Slovenian, Russian, Ukrainian, Persian, Italian, and Polish.
He is represented in several anthologies and selections of national, Balkan, and world poetry.
Four of his books have been published in translation: “Years” (Sarajevo, 2017); “The Noise of Loneliness” (New Jersey, 2018); “Needle and Thread” (Belgrade, 2025); and “Grammar of Love” (Bratislava, 2026, forthcoming).
Outstanding title:
NEEDLE AND THREAD (2016)
A precise, minimalist, witty, and truthful portrayal of the present. If it may be judged in that way, this is a book to which readers of this and future generations will always be able to return. It is an anamnesis of many destinies and of a time we will not be able to call ‘our own,’ because it is filled with things done in the name of the collective, in ‘our’ name, without anyone ever asking us anything. Yet we will know deep down that it truly was our time precisely because of such poetry, because of the book written by Janchovski.” (A. Burić)
No. of pp: 88
Rights sold to:
Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Latest title:
DECENT PROPOSAL AND OTHER POEMS (2024)
This poetry collection received the Special Karamanov Award in 2024 for the exceptional value of its verse as testimony and defense of humanism and the boundless kindness of man, whose heart is like a fist in the chest and from within is a hymn to goodness, with a hole that has no bottom and no end to kindness, reaffirming human values, because of all living beings ‘only man can love and speak’.
No. of pp: 67
Awards and honors:
- SPECIAL award on the “Karamanovi sredbi” festival (2024).
Rights:
SIVEJAN TP
tihomir.jancovski@gmail.com
+389 70 692 414