Vladimir Arsenijević (, born 1965) is a Serbian novelist, columnist, translator, editor, musician, and publisher. He lives and works in Belgrade. Arsenijević won the prestigious NIN Award for the Yugoslavian novel of the year 1994 for his novel In the Hold (Serbian: U potpalublju). Early life Arsenijević was born in Pula, SR Croatia, SFR Yugoslavia, and moved to Belgrade at a young age. In his early youth, Arsenijević (nicknamed Vlajsa) played with a punk band called "Urbana Gerila" as well as its post-punk offshoot "Berliner Strasse". After graduating high school and completing the mandatory military service in 1985, Arsenijević moved to London at the age of 20. He returned to Belgrade four years later in 1989. Writing career Novelist Arsenijević won the 1994 NIN Award in January 1995 for his first novel In the Hold (U potpalublju), thus at the age of 29 becoming the youngest ever recipient of the prestigious award. This was the first time the Award went to an author's debut novel. The anti-war novel, which takes place during the Battle of Vukovar in autumn 1991, was one of the first works published in Serbia to discuss the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia, although from the perspective of those who lived in Belgrade at the time. The slim 128-page novel got some attention internationally such as affirmative write-up by Laura Silber in the Los Angeles Times and was soon translated into 20 languages, placing Arsenijević almost instantly among the most translated Serbian writers. Translated into English by Celia Hawkesworth, the novel received positive reviews by Ken Kalfus and Richard Eder in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, respectively, upon its 1996 release in the United States by the Alfred A. Knopf publishing house. It was also staged as a play in the Yugoslav Drama Theatre by theater director Nikita Milivojević. Simultaneous to writing, Arsenijević supplemented his income by working as a guide in the Kontiki tourist agency. Since then, Arsenijević has published three other novels, two graphic novels and a book of essays. The long-awaited follow-up to In the Hold, and the second part of the envisioned tetralogy "Cloaca Maxima", novel Anđela was met with mixed criticism after it came out in Serbia in 1997. It was generally considered a weaker novel than U potpalublju and, although it was one of the best-selling novels of the year in Serbia, it failed to meet the expectations formed