Erica Johnson Debeljak

Born in San Francisco, California, she moved to New York in 1981, where she studied at Columbia University and New York University. In 1993, she moved to Slovenia and married the poet Aleš Debeljak. In her new home country, she began a career as a translator, writer and columnist. Her first book Foreigner in The House of Natives was published in 1999. In the following years, she wrote more books in various genres, including the popular memoir Forbidden Bread. In 2016, her life underwent another dramatic change when her husband died suddenly. She co-edited and wrote the introductory essay to the unique homage Just Passing Through: The Postcards of Aleš Debeljak (2018) and oversaw the transformation of this book into a museum exhibition at the Slovenian Ethnographic Museum. In 2021, she published Virgin Wife Widow Whore, which became an instant bestseller and won the Book of the Year Award at the 37th Slovenian Book Fair. Johnson Debeljak writes in English and her works are translated into Slovenian. She is a member of the Slovenian Writers’ Association and the International PEN and lives and works in Ljubljana.