Aleksa Đukanović

Writer. Essayist. Literary, theater and art critic. Editor and publicist. Born in 1998 in Belgrade.
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Aleksa Đukanović is a prose writer, short story writer, essayist, poet, literary, fine arts, and theatre critic, editor, publicist, and artist (Belgrade, January 4, 1998). He grew up, lives, and completed his primary and secondary education, as well as his studies in law, economics, and public systems, in Zemun and Belgrade. He works as a freelance writer.
He has published prose and criticism in leading regional literary journals and daily newspapers, including Zagreb's Književna republika, as well as Belgrade's Danas, NIN, Politica, and Večernje novosti, among others. In these publications, he has authored dozens of short stories, poems, literary-scientific and cultural articles, and autopoetic notes. He is the author of twenty titles encompassing narrative prose, short story collections, poetry, essays, diary entries, and literary, fine arts, and theatre theory and criticism published in Croatia and Serbia.
He is a member of the Association of Writers of Vojvodina, Matrix Serbica (Matica srpska) in Novi Sad, the Croatian Writers' Association in Zagreb, an honorary lifetime member of the Naji Naaman Maison de la Culture in Jounieh near Beirut (Lebanon), and belongs to several other literary, cultural, and artistic associations across the region and abroad. He previously served as an editor for the literary magazines Sisyphus and Literary Guild. His prose, poetry, and criticism have been included in about a dozen domestic and regional selections of contemporary prose and poetry, as well as numerous literary outlets in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the USA, Italy, Lebanon, etc. He writes in multiple standard varieties of the BCMS language group, using both Croatian and Serbian on an equal basis.
In 2025, the Opatija-based Croatian publisher Shura Publications published his Selected Short Stories (Izabrane novele) in two volumes, while the Belgrade publisher Presing issued his book Selected Stories 2015–2025: Laboratory (Laboratorijum), compiling selected short prose written over the preceding decade. Alongside literary and theatre criticism, he occasionally engages in film and art criticism, and on rare occasions, art creation itself. In his literary work, he predominantly favors shorter narrative forms over longer novelistic ones.
Recent regional and international literary criticism considers him a representative of both postmodernism and contemporary hybrid literature (combining intellectualized essayism, docufiction, and speculative fiction) among the younger generation of post-Yugoslav literature. Critics frequently highlight his prose for its anthropologically pessimistic worldview (often set across the broader Central European cultural space), conveyed through parodic, grotesque, and surreal descriptions, critical elements, semi-essayistic observations, and absurdist endings, all rendered through an expressive, ornate, Krležian language and Rabelaisian style.
Đukanović's in his prose to poetically and ideologically revive European historical impressionism, believing that across all literature—despite so-called 'grand themes'—the only thing that matters is a single captured moment, a fleeting image, a true blitz-scene that yields a lasting impression; at the same time, relying heavily on the largely forgotten Central European literary tradition of the 20th century.
His works have been translated into Italian, Hungarian, and English. He writes literary criticism for Belgrade's daily newspaper Danas and Politika. He lives and works in Zemun.Selective Bibliography:
1. Europa in extremis (poetry and essays, 2021)
2. Heretical Poems / Jeretičke pesme (poetry, 2021)
3. The Fallen Inquisitor / Pali inkvizitor (novella, 2021)
4. Book of Essays / Knjiga eseja (essays and reviews, 2021)
5. Novellas / Novele (collected short stories, 2023)
6. Poetry, Essays, Diaries / Lirika, Eseji, Dnevnici (collected poetry, collected essays, and diary fragments 2017–2023, 2023)
7. Strauss's Soliloquy / Štrausov solilokvij (short stories, 2024)
8. The Last Day of the Good Mr. Cilić / Poslednji dan dobrog gospodina Cilića (novella, 2024)
9. The Ideological Habitus of Ivo Andrić / Ideološki habitus Ive Andrića (study, 2024)
10. Selected Short Stories 1 / Izabrane novele 2 (novellas, 2025)
11. Selected Short Stories 2 / Izabrane novele 2 (novellas, 2025)
12. Laboratory – Selected Stories 2015–2025 / Laboratorijum – Izabrane priče 2015–2025. (short prose, 2025)Awards:
He has received several regional and international awards for his literary, artistic, and cultural contributions, including the Prosvjeta Literary Award Zvonimir Šubić (Prosvjetina književna nagrada Zvonimir Šubić) - 2021, the Prosvjeta Award Boško Milovanović (Prosvjetina nagrada Boško Milovanović) - 2022, the Naji Naaman International Literary Prize (Naji Naaman Prix Littéraire) - 2023, the Italian National Franz Kafka Award (Premio Nazionale Franz Kafka Italia) - 2025, and the Italian National Franz Kafka Honorary Award (Premio Nazionale Franz Kafka Italia - Premio Onorario) - 2025, among others.