Biography
Teodor Reljić is an author, screenwriter and journalist born in Belgrade, Serbia in 1985 but raised in Malta since 1992. He served as culture editor and film critic for the national newspaper MaltaToday from 2010 to 2020, and worked as a freelance writer between 2016 and 2020.
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Having graduated with both a Bachelor and Masters Degree in English Literature from the University of Malta, Reljić’s debut novel, Two, was published by Merlin Publishers in 2014, making it one of the few English-language works in the Merlin stable. A slim novella made up of two parallel storylines, the partly autobiographical work processes childhood and family traumas through an evocative and sense-driven perception of the Maltese urban landscape which is made to co-exist with a fairy tale narrative. It is a stylistic blend that continues to define Reljić’s approach to fiction across various projects across different platforms. His upcoming comic book series Mibdul – co-created with illustrator Inez Kristina and also published by Merlin Publishers – takes the fantastical-allegorical approach to Malta even further, crafting a pop-mythological narrative set on an alien planet assaulted by monsters, whose political environment nonetheless eerily – and satirically – echoes the one created by Maltese parliamentarians and their business cronies in recent years.
More recently, Reljić has dedicated his energies to screenwriting, with a particular emphasis on the adaptation of Maltese literary work into film. His debut short film, Camilla, was adapted from the story of the same name by Clare Azzopardi, together with director Stephanie Sant. It was the winning entry of the National Book Council’s Short Film Fund in 2018, and premiered at the National Book Festival in that same year. For the docu-series Storja ta’ Storja, Reljić adapted short works and excerpts by featured Maltese authors into screenplays, once again taking on the work of Clare Azzopardi, along with Loranne Vella, Immanuel Mifsud and Alex Vella Gera – whose Is-Sriep Reġgħu Saru Velenużi he has also adapted into a feature film screenplay after it won the National Book Council’s inaugural feature film fund in 2019.
Having served as a co-lecturer in the Creative Writing course within the Department of English from 2016 to 2019 and the editor of Encore Magazine from 2017 to 2019, Reljić is also one of the co-founders of Kixott Cooperative Ltd, an independent bookshop and cultural centre in Mosta.
