Prvoslav Vujcic

Vujcic was born on 20 July 1960 in the eastern Serbian city of Požarevac to father Jefrem and mother Nadežda and it was in Požarevac that he completed his elementary education.[5] In 1975, Vujcic enrolled in the Požarevac Gymnasium. That same year, he won the Zmaj Award (awarded annually by the Association of Writers of Serbia for the book of the year) for his collection of poetry titled Pesnik i pesma and the award was presented to him by Desanka Maksimović.[7] In late 1977, he visited Canada and the United States for the first time where he met one of his literary influences Charles Bukowski. Vujcic then read and presented his poetry with Bukowski on tour for fourteen days.[8] Vujcic completed his matura and graduated from the Požarevac Gymnasium in 1979. In the early 1980s, he was the leader of the Požarevac section of the Grobari, the supporters group of Partizan Belgrade.[4] In 1983, Vujcic wrote a book of poetry titled Razmišljanja jednog leša which was banned by the Communist government in Yugoslavia by court order in 1983.[9] In 1984, Vujcic was imprisoned in Tuzla for seven days (for his writing and criticizing of Yugoslavia's communist regime) where he wrote his second book of poetry titled Kastriranje vetra which was also banned by the Communist government.[10][11][12]

In January 1987, Vujcic moved to Canada.[13] Upon arrival in Canada, he helped raise funds for the construction of the Church of Saint Sava in Belgrade and the Živojin Mišić monument in Mionica.[4] On 28 June 1989, Vujcic helped organize ceremonies throughout Canada commemorating the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo.[4] The Canada Gazette wrote about Vujcic and his beginnings in Canada in a 1989 edition.[8] In 1992, he founded the United Serbs FC soccer club for which he and Mike Stojanovic played (as a child, Vujcic played soccer in the youth categories of FK Železničar Požarevac).[14] During this period, Vujcic was a contributor to Serbian magazine Pogledi. In 1999, he was one of the organizers of the Toronto-based demonstrations against the bombing of Yugoslavia. In terms of the Serbian diaspora, the demonstrations lasted all 78 days only in Toronto.[15]

Vujcic is a member of the Association of Writers of Serbia, the Royal Canadian Legion, the Canadian Association of Journalists, the Serbian Literary Guild, the Association of Writers of Republika Srpska and the US-based International Association of Writers.[16] In 2007, the International Association of Writers[4] named him a Poetry Ambassador of the United States.[4][7] He is also an honourable member of the Desanka Maksimović Serbian Canadian Association. Vujcic is featured in the book Moždana veza sa Srbijom, 100 dragulja srpskog rasejanja (Brain Connection with Serbia, 100 Jewels of the Serbian Diaspora) by Radivoje Petrović, PhD. The book features the "one hundred most-known Serbs throughout the world-wide Serbian diaspora."[17] He was also featured on the cover of the Ministry of Diaspora of the Republic of Serbia book called U čast pisaca iz rasejanja / In honour of writers in the diaspora[18] in which literary critics Miodrag Perišić and Čedomir Mirković said that "Vujcic is one of the most significant living Serbian poets and dissidents."[15][19]

He is the founder of the Urban Book Circle, based in Canada.[5]