Maja Herman Sekulić

Biography

Maja Herman Sekulić (aka Maya Herman) is an internationally published Serbian-American author of 21 books. She is a multi awarded Poet, popular Novelist, distinguished Essayist, bilingual scholar, major translator, acclaimed Icon of Poetry, World literature, and Style; she is also Ambassador of Culture and Good Will. Maja Herman is also a Princeton Ph.D. in Comparative Literature who taught at the most prestigious universities such s Princeton, Rutgers, and was a guest lecturer at Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Iowa universities and a recipient of two Fulbright scholar awards, American University Women and Princeton University fellowships.
In 2019-20 Maja Herman Sekulić received 11 prestigious international awards by World Congress of Poets, Munir Mezyed Foundation, Turkish Writers Associtioan, including the one given to the foreign poet in the Rpman senate and the first Serbian Oscar for her poetry and contributions to the world literature. She was also appointed the Global Poetry Icon and the US Chair of the Global Literary Society by its president dr Bhagirath Choudary, as well as the Ambassador of Good Will by the president of the World Literature Conference dr Jernail Anand and awarded by the Galaxy Jury the title of Golbal Icon of World Peace and Humanity. She is also a recipient of the very prestigious Simo Matavulj award, named after the first President of the Writers Association of Serbia. Her poetry colllection, The Grand Plan, was published in 2019 in English in German and in 2020 in Italian translation by Claudia Piccino with and introduction by Dante Maffia. Her poems appeared also in 2019-20 in various prestigious Brtitish/American and international anthologies such as Poetic Bond IX and X, the Galaxy Atunis Poetry Anthology The Winter is Coming international poetry, Poets and Poetry, Brave World Magazine, and Serbian national tv chanels and dailies such as Politika and Blic. Her poem Love in the Corona Time was translated in 25 languages and published in a special digital edition by Alia Mundi as the “poem that united the world” as its editor dr Ana Stjelja called it. In 2020, the distinguished Ars magazine published a fruit of 2 year labor of distinguisdhed academicians – a double issue dedicated entirely to her Literary world – Maja Herman Sekulic READER - on 339 pp with 464 units of Bibiliography, spomsored by the Ministry of Culture and University of Monte Negro. In 2019-20 she also published her novel in English Looking for Lolita, and volume 4 and 5 of her Selected works were published in Serbian by 2 major national publishers, as well as the new edition of her poems You who are me soon to be adapted fot the National Theater in Belgrade. Her novel Ma Belle, in English translation, was nominated for the 2018 international Dublin literary award. It was also nominated in 2016 for NIN, the most prestigious Serbian literary award, as were her 2 previous novels. Her Tesla biography in English Who was Nikola Tesla? The Genius who gave us Light, and her selected poems in a bilingual English-French e-edition, De La Terre de Desolation/Out of the Waste Land came out in 2016, and along with the long poem Lady of Vincha published in 2017 mark a major return to her origins in poetry. First 3 books of her Selected Works were published by 2 major Serbian publishers in October 2017 as the publishing event of the year. First in the series is Sketches for Portraits, a unique book of essays and conversations with major world poets such as Nobel Prize Winners Joseph Brodsky Deerek Walcott or Bob Dylan she befriended, or critics such as Nrthrop Frye who included their correspondence in the 10th volume of his Collected works, Susan Sontag or Harold Bloom, who at one point declared her to be his “spiritual daughter”. Second in the edition of her Selected works is Digital Galaxy, a multi genre book about the transition from Guttenberg to Digital Galaxy. Finally, there is her Poetry, a major collection of new and selected poems. Her new long poem, The Mighty Irina was published in October 2018 in both Serbian and English and had its premiere at the “Smederevo poets’ autumn” along with a selection of her poems in German in the prestigious edition “Meridians”. In 2018 she was honored as one of the Style Icons of Serbia in 20th and 21st century among 42 most important women in 2 centuries and in 1990s she was included by the Vogue photographer Marco Glaviano among the most beautiful women of the world. Maja Herman Sekulić is also a contributing editor for major magazines and a world traveler. Born in Belgrade, where she studied World literature, she spent last decade of the last century in the Far East and now shares her time between New York and Belgrade. She is awardee of the Serbian Association of Writers, cofounder of the Serbian Writers’ Society, member of the American and Serbian PEN and the Academy of American Poets.