Mladen Urem

Who is Mladen Urem?

Mladen Urem is a literary critic, author and editor.

Urem was born in Rijeka, Croatia, where he received his B. Sc. in radiology from the Medical School in Rijeka and also a B. A. in the Croatian language and literature from the Faculty of Philosophy.

During 1980-82, he was a singer and a guitarist with a new-wave & punk rock group Istočni izlaz. His name appears in The Little Encyclopaedia of Croatian Pop and Rock Music. He was the literary editor of the Val journal, founder and editor-in chief of the Rival literary magazine and also of the Biblioteka Val — an original titles series. He co-founded the philological magazine Fluminensia, founded and served as the editor-in-chief in the Sušačka revija culture magazine and as the editor-in-chief of the journal called Dometi.

In the war-edition of the Rival, Urem published the first retrospection of the Croatian literary works written on the frontlines at the beginning of the Croatian War of Independence.

During its thirteen years of existence, the Rival featured 800 authors and their works from the fields of Croatian and world literature and arts. During that period, the magazine presented many of the phenomena in the 90s world culture, as well as the authors that would later receive important awards and honours and was considered one of the most significant Croatian journals. The Rival magazine also published the English translations of the Croatian literary texts and developed a substantial collaboration with various world magazines and journals published in English.