Help us raise funds for a lasting memorial to Goran Stefanovski

Goran Stefanovski died on 27th November last year, shortly after being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour. He was 66. Goran was a man of great intellect, wisdom and humour, who is sorely missed by those who loved him and those who worked with him.

From 2002 he taught screenwriting at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK. In 1986 he founded the playwriting department at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Skopje, where he was a full professor until 1998. Between 1998 and 2000 he was a visiting professor at the Dramatic Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, where his A Little Book of Traps (a scriptwriting tool) was published in 2002. It has been published in five languages, including Chinese.

Goran contributed papers to a large number of conferences and held workshops all over Europe. His last public lecture was as keynote speaker at the International Federation for Theatre Research World Congress in Belgrade in July 2018. His last public appearance was to receive an honorary doctorate from the Bulgarian National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts in Sofia.

Goran was a truly international figure, a prolific playwright, screenwriter, essayist and public intellectual. His work dealt with issues of migration, post-communist transition, war and identity, as well as insights into what it means to be human. His plays have been translated and performed in several European languages, not only all over Europe, but also in the USA and New Zealand, winning him numerous prestigious prizes. Goran Stefanovski – Five Plays, a Conrad Press publication, will soon be available.

His cremated remains have been returned to his homeland and an Old World sycamore (platanus orientalis) has been planted in his memory in a little park in Skopje at the heart of the part of the city he loved best, Debar Maalo.

A bronze sculpture has now been commissioned to be placed under the tree. It consists of a bench with a statue of Goran seated on it and room for someone else to sit beside him and enjoy his company for a while. You can see updates on the making of the sculpture here.

If your life and/or that of your institution was touched in some way by Goran Stefanovski and you would like to make a gift to preserve his memory with this sculpture, please contribute to this crowdfunder. Please also share it with others you think might want to know about it.

Thank you.