Sanita Fejzić

Sanita Fejzić is a Bosnian-Canadian poet, playwright, novelist, and essayist. At the age of seven, she fled the genocide of her Muslim Bosniak people and the Siege of Sarajevo. She lived as a refugee, illegal immigrant, and “Temporary Guest” across three countries in Europe for five years with her mother and brother. Her father, who was stuck in the longest siege of modern history, joined them years later. In 1997, her family moved to Ottawa, Canada, the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people on Turtle Island.

If her childhood was stolen by genocide, forced exile and sudden precarity, it was literature and theatre that saved her spirit. Because of this dramatic start, her interdisciplinary body of work dwells on intergenerational trauma, mother-child relations, the devastating effects of nationalism, neoliberalism and militarism, and the transformative power of eco-socially engaged art. Following Monique Witting’s assertion that “lesbians are not women,” Fejzić identifies as a gender nonconforming lesbian, a trans-inclusive reading of lesbianism. As an ex-social service worker with Ottawa’s shelter system, she approaches her work and aesthetic of being from socialist, eco-feminist and queer lenses.

Her first novella, Psychomachia, Latin for “battle of the soul,” was shortlisted for the 2015 Ken
Klonsky Novella Prize and the 2018 Canada ReLit Awards. Her first full length play, Blissful State of Surrender, premiered at the Great Canadian Theatre Company on February 22, 2022. Fejzić has published her poetry and short stories in literary magazines across Canada. She has won, and been shortlisted, for numerous local and national poetry and literary awards.