Dr Beate Eder-Jordan is Assistant Professor at the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Innsbruck/Austria. She has been involved in research on topics related to Romani literatures and cultures for 30 years.

She started her research on Romani literatures in 1986 as a student of comparative literature and spanish philology at Innsbruck University. In 1986/87 she was awarded a scholarship to study in Granada/Spain where she met the Roma author José Heredia Maya, had contacts with the Asociación Gitana de Granada and carried out research on theater and literature by José Heredia Maya.

Back in Austria she witnessed the “birth” of Romani literature and the Austrian Romani movement. In 1990 she attended the world congress of the Romani Union in Poland.

In her book Geboren bin ich vor Jahrtausenden… Bilderwelten in der Literatur der Roma und Sinti (in English “I was born millenniums ago… Worlds of images in the literature of Roma and Sinti”) (Klagenfurt/Celovec: Drava 1993) she explores similarities and differences in literary work by Roma and Romnja in different countries.

In her articles she deals with issues including national-socialist race and extinction policy reflected in Roma and Sinti literatures, the socio-political situation, orality and internal criticism within literature and the arts.

Dr Eder-Jordan calls Romani literatures a stroke of luck for comparative literature (“La littérature romani: une aubaine pour la littérature comparée”, Revue Etudes Tsiganes 36/1, 2009, p. 146-179).

She has organized conferences, readings and cultural events with Romani writers and artists, such as the 2015 “writer in residence” program with Jovan Nikolić at the University of Innsbruck.

In 2014 Dr Beate Eder-Jordan re-edited a new German edition of József Holdosi’s novel Kányák with the title “Die gekrönten Schlangen” (in English “The Crowned Snakes”; Innsbruck: innsbruck university press, 2014) which received very good reviews.