The novel 'Ma numesc Damjan'/ 'Ime mi je Damjan' [My Name is Damjan] by Slovenian author Suzana Tratnik, launched in Bucharest in the presence of the author thanks to the Slovenian Embassy in Romania, discusses gender identity from the perspective of a transgender boy, Damjan, who was assigned female at birth.

The novel, which has already been released in multiple editions, enjoyed a great deal of appreciation, but also stirred a lot controversy in Slovenia, especially after becoming one of the books promoted in all the schools throughout this country as part of a reading promotion programme, alongside other books. The novel had a new edition released especially for this programme and it was distributed free of charge to all high schools in Slovenia. The book was also translated into seven other languages: Serbian, Czech, Slovak, German, Macedonian, Bulgarian and Romanian.

First published in 2001, when there wasn't much discussion about the trans identities in Slovenia, the novel speaks about gender identity with an emphasis on the manner in which the main character rejects any label that the others may seem tempted to throw his way. The story builds around a teenager, a girl named Vesna, who feels more and more like a boy growing up and then, at 17, decides to take the name Damjan and starts to live like a boy in a woman's body.

Searching for one's true identity is a very old topic, stretching back to antiquity, actually. However, leaving aside gender identity as the main theme here, the novel also talks about the lack of communication between generations, insisting a lot on the relationship between Damjan and his parents, and, in general, about the problems that any teenager faces when trying to make sense of the world around or trying to build a future for himself/herself.

"His situation is complicated due to many issues he tries to handle in his own way. As the story is quite difficult, it would have been hard for me to write it without using humour. I found humor very important because it can be a good way to describe things/situations from a different perspective. One may see it like I wanted to place a secret in the novel, although that wasn't my intention. But if it works that way, I don't mind either," Suzana Tratnik told AGERPRES.

While not qualifying as a role model teenager, by any means, Damjan is still the kind of teenager many other teenagers can easy resonate with.

"When I write a book I don't usually have any special readership in mind. But when this book came out in 2001 it was labeled as a "youth novel," probably because Damjan is 19 years old, although I see him as a grown-up in many ways. The novel was published in 2001 by the LGBT publisher Skuc-Lambda. It was published again in 2014 by the bigger publisher Mladinska knjiga and a year later in 22,000 copies for the project Growing Up With the Book - Rastem s knjigo, which is a national cultural project. That means that the kids get copies of the book all over Slovenia on the day the schools take them to their local libraries. That doesn't mean that they have to read the book or that I have to be invited. However, I was a guest in many schools and discussion about the novel was always very nice and vivid. Kids in secondary schools didn't even mind so much about Damjan's gender, but were more interested in his behaviour, his problems in school and family and elsewhere, his relationship with a girlfriend, what could improve his difficult life etc.," the author also told AGERPRES.

According to her own statements, Suzana Tratnik comes from a working class family, and from a mixed marriage (mother is a Serbian, father was Slovenian). She was born in Yugoslavia, in a small town in the northeastern side of the country, and now she is living in Slovenia. As a LGBT activist, she says that there is still a lot to be done in her country when it comes about the LGBT community.

"We walked a long way as this year we celebrate 40 years of LGBT activism in Slovenia. We have gay marriage, which is an important sign of the equality before the law, but homophobia is still here, affecting young people who have no support in their surroundings, and also many others as the societal expectations can be still very conservative and outdated, especially for women and all other minority groups. That is why our task remains building up strong lesbian, women, trans and LGBT communities. For me personally it is also very important to make lesbian writing and LGBT art in general more visible and give it the importance which it deserves," said Suzana Tratnik.

Suzana Tratnik debuted in 1997 with a short story collection called "Pod niclo" [Below zero]. She went on to publish seven volumes of short stories and six novels, "Ime mi je Damjan" (2001){MY Name is Damijan], "Tretji svet" (2007) [Third world], "Tombola ali zivljenje!" (2017) [Bingo or Life!], "Norhavs na vrhu hriba" (2019) [Madhouse on the Hilltop], "Pontonski most" (2020) [A Pontoon Bridge] and "Ava" (2021). She is also an acclaimed translator of English and American literature. For her literaryworks, she was awarded the Preseren Award, the highest cultural award in Slovenia (2007), the Novo mesto Short Prose Award (2017) and the Award for the Best Novel for Young People (2018). Her literary work has been translated into more than twenty languages.

Translated into Romanian by Paula Braga Simenc, the novel "Ma numesc Damjan" was published by Casa Cartii de Stiinta Publishing House in 2022. Simenc has translated a whole series of classical or contemporary Slovenian authors, as well as articles or text fragments for various publications. AGERPRES (EN - author: Cristina Zaharia, editor: Mariana Ionescu)