Biography

Dragan Todorovic is a writer and multimedia artist. He was born in Yugoslavia, where he lived until 1995, when he emigrated to Canada. In Belgrade he was a journalist, an editor, and a TV personality. He started writing when he learned how to write. At first he wrote poetry, then stories, then essays, then cheques. His cheques invariably receive a warm welcome.

He studied law and journalism. Between 1977 and 1995 Dragan published extensively in leading magazines of Yugoslavia. At some point, he had won the Best Young Journalist award. During the last six years of his life in Belgrade he published four books and worked mostly in radio and television as a radio host, writer and producer, among other things writing and directing 24 radio-plays for Radio Politika. He also made two TV documentaries and hosted over 150 TV shows.

He had two exhibitions in Belgrade and directed two theatre shows. He is in Serbian “Who is Who ”.

Dragan continued to write after moving to Canada. He wrote for Toronto Star, This, Saturday Night, NOW, Ottawa Citizen and other Canadian publications. In 1997 his article “Border Crossing” was nominated for the Canadian National Magazine Award. In 1998 he was part of the prestigious Creative Journalism program at Banff Centre for the Arts. The essay written there was published in a book in 2000. The same year, he worked with Ken Finkleman as the script consultant on his TV series “Foreign objects” (episode “Evil”), where he got one of the leading roles, in spite of refusing to change his haircut.

For his multimedia work, Dragan won awards at the New York Festivals, John Caples International Awards, and Astound International Competition. Because of his never-ending love for radio, a few years ago Dragan started exploring the possibilities of sound, and made two projects for CBC Radio One. His most recent work was a sound-art piece for CBC Radio One and Deep Wireless Festival, titled “In My Language I am Smart.”

His writing has been characterized as “fascinating storytelling which leads the reader imperceptibly from brilliant essayistic insights to a heavy, Hemingwayesque prose.” Also, “Great detail and marvellous language.” And “Todorovic is an exceptional creative writer, but he is also an excellent reporter.”

Barbara Ehrenreich has asked him once for permission to use one of his articles as an example for her students of journalism. He considers that to be an award.

Dragan’s writing was supported by Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.

His first book in English, “The Book of Revenge”, was nominated for British Columbia Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, and won The Nereus Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize in 2007. His second book (his first novel) has just been short listed for Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in the Caribbean and Canada Best First Book category.

He is currently working on his second novel. It is set in Patagonia in 1974.