Jasna Horvat

After Vilijun – the permuted novel of Vilikon - the oeuvre of Jasna Horvat has been marked by the compound term Ars Horvatiana thus confirming its construction and uniqueness in contemporary Croatian literature. The novel Atanor is constructed according to the structure of the periodic system of elements and represents a unique combination of literature and knowledge of (al) chemistry. The novels Vilijun and Atanor have established this Croatian author as the originator of “smart literature” which requires the use of a smartphone or QR code reader for full-text retrieval.

She has headed several scientific projects. One such project was the development of the CATI Center, a research platform for collecting, analyzing and interpreting statistical data. She has participated in numerous scientific conferences in the fields of social sciences and the humanities and has been a recipient of international scholarships and an invited lecturer. In 2012, she was appointed scientific adviser and attained the position of full professor with tenure in the scientific area of social sciences, in the field of economics, in the branch of quantitative economics. She is also the founder and vice president of Andizet - Institute for Scientific and Artistic Research in the Creative Industry.

Since 2012, she has been a member of the committee for the Dr. Ivan Šreter Award, an annual Croatian linguistics award for the best Croatian language word coined. She has presented Croatian Literature at the inaugural launch of the EU-China International Literary Festival which was held in 2017 in Beijing and Chengdu. With her associates, she has published a bilingual publication Ars Andizetum, which is available also through open access and offers a new definition of the Creative Industry.

In the novel Az (2009), which received the prestigious award for literature from the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences (2010), Jasna Horvat popularizes the Glagolitic script by incorporating it into the plot of a novel on a lexical, numerical and symbolic level. Bizarij (The Bizarrium) - a novel about the phantasmagoria of connectedness - Jasna Horvat uses conjunctions to point to the grammatical codification of intimate and historical attachments to topos. In this case, the city of Osijek is chosen for its topos and the famous bizarre former residents of Osijek are the bearers of the symbolic correspondence with the conjunctions as a part of speech. The conceptual variations of this author culminate in Auron [hr] where the golden ratio is built not only into the text structure but also into the life of the novel's main protagonist Auron. Captions in the margins of the novel are filled with details about the auron concept of beauty and thereby, with captions in the margins, Auron's [hr] readers receive a wealth of information about the golden ratio format - auron – as well as its most diverse occurrences. The lexicon novel of the fairies - Vilikon, is a mixture of two cultural stories: one narrated by Marco Polo and one interpreted by Kubla Khan, Marco's listener. The lexicon entries of the fairies, supernatural beings of the Kingdom of Croatia, are told by the use of a magic square of 12. The novel Alikvot is built on the study of Vladimir Mažuranić and in its contents completes an unfinished novel by Ivana Brlić Mažuranić Jaša Dalmatin, potkralj Gudžerata. This novel also brings The Manifesto of Axiomatic Literature by which the writer clarifies the doctrine on which she based her opus.

The book of letters exchanged with Irena Vrkljan Pismo u pismu (A Letter in a Letter), (Naklada Ljevak, 2008) is a confirmation of a friendship revived through letters, as well as a showcase of the cultural versatility of both authors. The novels Az [hr] (Naklada Ljevak, 2009), Bizarij (The Bizarrium), (Naklada Ljevak, 2009), Auron [hr] (Naklada Ljevak, 2011), Vilikon (Naklada Ljevak, 2012), Alikvot (Algoritam, 2014), Vilijun (Naklada Ljevak, 2016), Atanor (Naklada Ljevak, 2017) and OSvojski (Naklada Ljevak, 2019) point to Jasna Horvat's penchant for experiments manifested primarily in the conceptualization of the novelistic form.

Her works for children - Izgubljena vila (Lost Fairy) (Matica hrvatska, 2002.), Alemperkina kazivanja (Gemfeather’s Sayings), (Naklada Ljevak, 2005) and Krijesnici(The Bonfires), (Algoritam, 2009) – thematize the mythological concept of the Croatian Pantheon, adapt it to children, and through the illustrations of Pika Vončina they become easily remembered traditions.

She studied at the Faculty of Economics, University of Osijek, where she graduated (1989) and was employed as an assistant at the Department of Cybernetics, Mathematics and Statistics (1990). Following the completion of her postgraduate studies, she obtained her master's degree (January 23, 1992) from the Faculty of Economics in Osijek, and she earned her doctoral degree (26 May 1997) also from the Faculty of Economics in Osijek by defending her dissertation before a committee which included her advisor, as well as an international member, Anuška Ferligoj, a full professor at the University of Ljubljana.

Her literary work started through a collaboration with the Children's Theater Branko Mihaljević in Osijek in the late 1990s. At that time, the Drama Studio of the children's theater was staging the play “Putem sunca”, which was later renamed “Svevidovim tragom” (Tracing Svevid) and appeared in “Izgubljena vila (Lost Fairy), a book of two dramatized texts published by Matica hrvatska in 2002. After the Lost Fairy, in 2005, Naklada Ljevak published Alemperkina kazivanja (Gemfeather’s Sayings) - her interpretation of the mythology of Sučić with superb illustrations by Pika Vončina.

Jasna Horvat (27 December 1966) is a Croatian writer, cultural theorist and full professor at the University of Osijek. She writes novels, essays and books for children and youth as well as academic works. Most of her works have been assessed as Oulipian.

Jasna Horvat was on born 27 December 1966 in Osijek.