Brian Willems

Brian Willems (pictured with his cat César Aira) was born in Minnesota, and now lives and works in Croatia, teaching literature at the University of Split and serving as director of its Studia Mediterranea centre. Brian’s poetry and prose have appeared in The Antioch Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Things Magazine, Prague Literary Review and elsewhere. He is the author of the experimental novella Henry, Henry (2016), as well as several academic books, most recently Sham Ruins: A User's Guide (2022), and is co-editor, with Nicol Barria-Asenjo and Slavoj Žižek, of Global Manifestos for the 21st Century, with a foreword by Yanis Varoufakis (2023). He translates from Croatian into English, including work by Jurica Pavičić, and Luka Bekavac's Gallery of Fine Arts in Osijek: Studies, Ruins. He is co-editor of LOOK Editions, and has been a guest lecturer in the UK, USA, the Middle East, and continental Europe. The Surviving Cells is his first novel.