Natasha Sardzoska
- North Macedonia -
Natasha Sardzoska (Skopje, 1979), poet, writer, performer, essayist, literary translator and polyglot interpreter (FR, IT, ES, EN, PT, HR, CA), and journalist, holds a PhD in anthropology from the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris and University of Bergamo and has successfully defended her doctoral dissertation on borders and liminality before an examination committee chaired by the distinguished German-American anthropologist prof. dr. Monique Scheer. She has lived in Milan, Lisbon, Perpignan, Bergamo, Paris, Brussels, Stuttgart, Rijeka, Heidelberg. She is a Poetry Editor at the Borders in Globalization Review at the University of Victoria in Canada and non-resident affiliated researcher at the Centre for Advanced studies of Southeast Europe in Rijeka.
She has published the poetry books Blue Room, Skin, He pulled me with invisible string, Living Water, Coccyx and Lessons of Deceit and the novels Tramontana and Life without Witnesses. Her novel “Tramontana” has been published in Bulgaria, after being a bestseller in North Macedonia. She has published poetry books in the USA, in Mexico, in Italy, in Croatia, in Honduras and in Kosovo and her poetry has been translated in 20 languages and published in international literary reviews and anthologies.
In 2021 she received the Poesia a Napoli Award for best poem written in Italian language as non-native language by Guida Editore, Don Luigi di Liegro Award for poetry written in Italian language as non-native language in Rome and in 2023 the Croatian Writers Association Award for book published outside Croatia in Rijeka.
She has written for the reviews Doppiozero, Nuova Prosa in Milan and Transmidia in Rio de Janeiro and collaborated as journalist with the Macedonian reviews Fokus and Nova Makedonija. She has translated from Italian, Portuguese and Catalan more than hundred writers and she is the first and only one translator of Pier Paolo Pasolini, Pedro Salinas, Jose Saramago and Joan Margarit in Macedonian language. She has won a prize from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy for first translation of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi.
In 2024 she has had a Literary presentation in the Italian Cultural Institute in Stuttgart, several poetry recitals and readings in Trieste at Parole tra i luoghi and Sentiero dei poeti/Pot pesnikov at the former Italian-Slovenian border, and in Naples namely in the literary and music venue Perditempo and in Pessoa Taverna Portuguesa. At the Ars Poetica Festival in Bratislava she has performed her poetry singing a-cappella in the National Gallery. During her poetry reading at the International Poetry Festival in Genova, within the Versopolis program, she has performed with a-cappella singing and body-painting in Palazzo Ducale.
She had a poetry reading at the Museum Revoltella in Trieste. She attended the distinguished Colombian poetry festival in Medellin, the Italian poetry festival Ritratti di poesia in Rome and Poetry readings at Osteria al Poeta in Trieste and at Gorizia a capo in Gorizia. At the Academy of Arts in Berlin she performed her poetry-musical recital barefoot in a unique dancing performance for the Poetry Festival of Berlin. At the Sha’ar Poetry Festival in Tel Aviv she has performed in Arab-Hebrew Theatre accompanied by sax, contrabass and contemporary dancer in Jaffa Theatre.
She attended the Off Line Poetry Festival in Istanbul and the Poetry Evenings in Salihli in Türkiye and delivered poetry recitals at many literary readings in the Balkans, namely in Skopje, Struga, Belgrade, Ohrid, Sofia, Tirana, Budva, Plav Lake and Zagreb.
She organized with the French Institute the poetic soirée Les rivages de l’exil on francophone poetry on exile and with the Italian Embassy in Skopje the poetic-musical evening Il vino è la poesia della terra where she has performed poems in Italian language. Her poem Doll on Strings has been published in English and Spanish in the International Poetry Anthology against child abuse. She attended translation residency at the Ramon LLull Institute in Barcelona, Writers in Residence in Zagreb on invitation by the Croatian PEN Center, in Pazin at the Writers House and in Split for the Traduki Residency for Writers. In 2025 the International Shanghai Poetry festival opened the Gala ceremony with her poem Cartography of fire. She is published in the Berlin-based poetry platform Lyrikline.org.
In her poetry she experiments with the language and challenges meanings and symbols. Her poetic recitals are performative and interactive: she combines vocal experiments, music, improvisation, body drawing and dance. Her poetry explores boundaries, memory and space, and intertwines sensuality, intimacy and reminiscence of the flesh, exposing inner pain, exile, homelessness and revealing spiritual strength and freshness. Her poetic memory captures the dramaturgy of the chamber space of the human existence.
In her existentialist novels she explores deeply marginal characters dismantling their psychological abysses, deploying stream of consciousness and hard post-communism transition realism. She writes and auto-translates herself in Macedonian, Italian, French, English, Croatian and Spanish language.
List of publications
Poetry Books
The Blue Room, Dijalog, Skopje, 1999;
Skin, De Odorico Casa, Skopje, 2013;
He pulled me with an invisible string, Poetiki, Skopje, 2014;
Living water, Makavej, Skopje, 2017;
Pelle, Versopolis, Genova, 2018;
Coccyx, PNV, Skopje, 2019;
Skin, Inner Child Press, USA, 2019;
Asht kryqi, Armagedoni, Pristina, 2020;
Osso sacro, Interno Poesia, Bari, 2020;
Tiempo de la noche, Alpaso Ediciones, Festival Confines, Honduras, 2020;
Carne viva, Oxeda Editorial, Mexico, 2023;
Lessons of Deceit, TRI Publishing, Skopje, 2023;
Geography of Freedom, HKD, Rijeka, 2025.
Novels
Tramontana, TRI Publishing, Skopje, 2021;
Life without Witnesses, TRI Publishing, Skopje, 2023.
Poetry
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Skin / Кожа
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Geisha / Гејша
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cartography of fire / картографија на огнот
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homeless wind / бездомен ветер
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sans-papiers / sans-papiers
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homeless / бездомник
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Black falcon / црн сокол
