30-11-2018

OBITUARY: Macedonian Playwright and Screenwriter Goran Stefanovski

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    SKOPJE: The distinguished playwright and screenwriter Goran Stefanovski passed away on 27 November 2018 after a short illness in his home in the United Kingdom, at the age of 66. He was one of the most loved and widely performed and published dramatist with many international awards to his name.

    Stefanovski achieved considerable success with his work before moving to the UK in the early nineties. His most acclaimed stage plays dealt with the political and social fallout from the division of the former Yugoslavia: Yane Zadrogaz, Wild Flesh, Flying on the Spot, The False Bottom, HI-FI, Tattooed Souls. His most important film contributions were the scripts for Vladimir Blazevski`s HI-FI (1987), Stole Popov`s To the Hilt (2014) and the cult children TV series Bushava Azbuka (1985).

    Stefanovski was born in Bitola in 1952 and he became one of the leading theatre professionals in the country. In 1986 Stefanovski founded the playwriting department at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Skopje, Macedonia, where he was a full professor until 1998. In 1990 he spent six months as Outstanding Artist Fulbright Scholar at the US Ivy League school Brown University. Between 1998 and 2000 he was a visiting professor at the Dramatic Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2002 he joined Canterbury Christ Church University, UK, as a senior lecturer in screenwriting. He was a member of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the Writers` Association of Macedonia and Macedonian Pen Center.

    He is the brother of Vlatko Stefanovski, a well-known virtuoso guitarist.