Lidija Dimkovska

Lidija Dimkovska (born Skopje, 1971) is a Macedonian poet, novelist and translator. She writes mainly in Macedonian, but her work has reached many European readers through translation. She studied comparative literature at the University of Skopje and later earned a PhD in Romanian literature at the University of Bucharest, a training that explains her lasting connection to Romanian and Slovenian literature.

She combined teaching with writing. She taught Macedonian language and literature at the University of Bucharest and world literature at the University of Nova Gorica in Slovenia. Her first prose book, the novel Hidden Camera (2004), won the Macedonian Writers' Association award and was nominated as the best novel of the year. Her later novels, including A Spare Life, also received prizes at home and from the European Union. Her poetry, marked by a restrained tone and attention to everyday experience and memory, has appeared in many languages, and pH Neutral History was translated into English and shortlisted for a translation prize.

She now lives in Ljubljana, working as a freelance writer and translator from Romanian and Slovenian. She has also edited the online literary journal Blesok and has taken part in international festivals and juries. Her legacy lies at the crossroads of Balkan and Central European literatures: she is one of the most translated Macedonian writers of her generation, and her work has helped bring the poetry and fiction of North Macedonia to readers beyond its borders.