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Contributor

John K. Cox

Portrait of translator John K. Cox
Contributor

John K. Cox

John K. Cox is professor of history and department head at North Dakota State University in Fargo. His published translations include five volumes of works by Danilo Kiš; novels by Ajla Terzić and Muharem Bazdulj; short fiction by Ismail Kadare, Ivan Ivanji, Ivo Andrić, and Meša Selimović; and nonfiction by Joseph Roth, Stefan Heym, Erwin Koch, and Filip David. His historical works include the books The History of Serbia and Slovenia: Evolving Loyalties, as well as articles on nationalism in various parts of Southeastern Europe. Currently he is translating Miklós Radnóti’s short stories and researching the works of Erzsébet Galgóczi. Cox and his family live with their bikes, some cats, a lot of books, and a few chickens on the edge of the prairie, and he still thinks Graham G. should have won a Nobel Prize.

Articles by John K. Cox

It Was Her World, Too—Translating Biljana Jovanović
By John K. Cox
John K. Cox’s translation of Biljana Jovanović’s “Lida, Danilo, and the Others” appears in the June 2017 issue.For Words without Borders’s Queer Issue VIII, I translated…
Lida, Danilo, and the Others
By Biljana Jovanović
Because of all that, I only rode buses that were almost empty.
Translated from Serbian by John K. Cox
Tito and Taxidermy, or What If Tito Had Been on Twitter?
By Ajla Terzić
The human factor is not essential. Sunscreen—now that's essential.
Translated from Bosnian by John K. Cox
Multilingual
The Other Letter
By Muharem Bazdulj
He gave me a very serious look and said there would not be any more murders.
Translated from Croatian by John K. Cox
Multilingual
The Model
By Danilo Kiš
The first thing she did was remove her red shawl. Then she draped her coat on a hanger next to the podium where she would be posing. She slid off her dress; its fabric was colorful. And there she stood,…
Translated from Serbian by John K. Cox
The Robot
By Danilo Kiš
No one was surprised by his arrival. There was nothing miraculous about seeing a robot walk in through the door, choose a table, push away chairs, and study the menu. He did all of it as adroitly and…
Translated from Serbian by John K. Cox
The Coat
By Uwe Timm
She was on her way up the stairs. Where the steps got wider in the corner of the stairwell, on the side toward the wall, she halted for a moment and waited till she caught her breath. Her knees were trembling…
Translated from German by John K. Cox
The Abolition of the Profession of Curser
By Ismail Kadare
Other rumors might have circulated widely in earlier periods, but without a doubt these new ones should have produced the greatest effect. The current reports concerned the abolition of the office of…
Translated from French by John K. Cox
Games on the Banks of the Danube
By Ivan Ivanji
Everybody knows you can’t choose your place of birth, any more than you can select your parents. My birthplace is located on a body of water; human hands have altered and straightened the banks…
Translated from German by John K. Cox