{"id":23626,"date":"2025-06-14T14:46:39","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T14:46:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mai.org.mk\/macedonian-literature\/?p=23626"},"modified":"2025-09-01T10:50:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T10:50:17","slug":"aleksandar-prokopiev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mai.org.mk\/macedonian-literature\/aleksandar-prokopiev\/","title":{"rendered":"Aleksandar PROKOPIEV"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prokopiev\u2019s shape-shifting stories remain adamantly, radically open for us to interpret. They challenge us to accept, even to embrace, our own confusion: implying, perhaps, that life itself is as confusing as any fable.<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biography<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Aleksandar Prokopiev<\/strong> (1953, Skopje) is Macedonian storywriter, essayist and poet. He also writes screenplays for film, theatre, TV shows, radio dramas, comic books and animated films. Earned his MA and PhD at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade at the department of Comparative Literature and Theory of Literature and he worked as scientific researcher and professor at the Institute of Macedonian Literature at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2000, Encyclopaedia Britannica highlighted his hybrid prose book \u201cAnti-Instructions for Personal Use\u201d among the most interesting annual publications from South-East Europe. In 2011 Prokopiev won the prestigious international award \u201cBalkanika\u201d for the collection of fairy tales for adults \u201cHomunculus: Fairy Tales from the Left Pocket\u201d. In 2022, in the latest edition of the extensive, renowned history of European literature \u201cLes Lettres Europ\u00e8ennes\u201d, his prose is analyzed in the chapter \u201cTrends and contemporary figures 1989-2021\u201d, comparing it with the narration of inventive storytellers, such as Barthelme and Calvino.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prokopiev is the author of the following books: \u201cThe Young Master of the Game\u201d (short stories, 1983), \u201c…or..\u201d. (short stories, 1986), \u201cSailing South\u201d (short stories, 1987), \u201cA Sermon on the Snake\u201d (stories, 1992), \u201cVoyages of Tale\u201d (essays, 1996), \u201cLet\u2019s make a movie\u201d (children\u2019s picture book, 1997), \u201cArs amatoria\u201d (stories, 1998), \u201cImage which rolls\u201d (haiku, 1998), \u201cWas Callimachus a Postmodernist?\u201d (essays, 1994), \u201cFairytale on the road\u201d (essays, 1996), \u201cAnti-Instructions for Personal Use\u201d (poetical diary, 2000), \u201cPostmodern Babylon\u201d (essays, 2000), \u201cThe man with four watches\u201d (short stories, 2003), \u201cBorges and the computer\u201d (essays, 2005), \u201cThe Peeper\u201d (novella, 2007), \u201cHomunculus: Fairy Tales from the Left Pocket\u201d (stories, 2011), \u201cHorazzio Cvikalo\u201d (stories, 2013), \u201cSimeon and Ivec\u201d (flesh drama, 2014), \u201cBirds and Cats\u201d (haiku , 2015), \u201cThe Son \u2013 Fish\u201d (short stories, 2017), \u201cThe Dolphin\u201d (short stories, 2018), \u201c222 Anti-Instructions for Personal Use\u201d (short stories, 2019), \u201cLove Amateurs\u201d (short stories, 2021), \u201cThe dance of the colorful handkerchiefs\u201d (children\u2019s picture book, 2022), \u201cTribune, Chronysteric, Nomad\u201d (essays, 2023), \u201cHaiku from Skopje\u201d (haiku, 2023).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outstanding title:<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
HOMUNCULUS (2011)<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHomunculus\u201d is a collection of sixteen adult fairy tales in which Prokopiev combines the erotic, tragic, absurd, and humorous. The tales in \u201cHomunculus\u201d challenge our perceptions of reality. They transcend the sugar-sweet endings we normally associate with fairy tales while retaining elements of the magical and unexpected. The reader is drawn through the familiar and the unknown: guided through subverted fairytales known to most Europeans such as Tom Thumb and Snow White, others that have their roots in Macedonian folklore, and tales straight from the head of Prokopiev himself. Humorous, skillful and unexpected, each story contains at its very core a love of life.

No. of pp<\/strong>: 144<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Rights sold to:<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Poland (\u201cWydawnictwo Toczka\u201d), Croatia (\u201cFraktura\u201d), England (\u201cIstros Books\u201d), Italy (\u201cSalento books\u201d), Albania (\u201cFan Noli\u201d), Bulgaria (\u201cKnigi za vsichki\u201d), Serbia (“Geopoetika”), Turkiye (“Pinhan”), Egypt (“Al arabi”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latest title:<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
TRIBUNE, CHRONYSTERIC, NOMAD (2025)<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

All eleven essays from this book are focused on a single theme: the fate of “authorship as such”, the fatalism of the very choice of this destiny (to be\/remain a writer at any cost…), the fatalism of the innumerable variants of this choice (the variants that are continuously confirmed as “unfortunate” or “misunderstood”!), the eternal author’s insecurity\/distrust about\/because of what was written (personal and “objective”…), the daily doubt (first of all in oneself…)… Special book of Prokopievian stature, <\/em>written with the heavy but also angelically casual author’s hand, full of sumptuous cascades of sentences and paced in the bravura tempo of andante con brio.<\/em>

No. of pp<\/strong>: 157<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Rights: <\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Ars Lamina \u2013 Publications
 rights@arslamina.com<\/a>
+389 (0) 2 3124 227<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prokopiev\u2019s shape-shifting stories remain adamantly, radically open for us to interpret. They challenge us to accept, even to embrace, our own confusion: implying, perhaps, that life itself is as confusing as any fable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23627,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[212,211,208,206,210],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-authors","category-drama","category-essay","category-fiction","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mai.org.mk\/macedonian-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mai.org.mk\/macedonian-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mai.org.mk\/macedonian-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mai.org.mk\/macedonian-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mai.org.mk\/macedonian-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23626"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mai.org.mk\/macedonian-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23893,"href":"https:\/\/mai.org.mk\/macedonian-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23626\/revisions\/23893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mai.org.mk\/macedonian-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mai.org.mk\/macedonian-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mai.org.mk\/macedonian-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mai.org.mk\/macedonian-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}