Ksenija Premur was born in Zagreb in 1962. In 1981 she started her studies of Philosophy and Russian language and literature at The Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, and she graduated from it in 1986, honoured with Vice-Chancellor’s Award. During her studies, she started publishing her reviews, essays and original articles in various magazines (“Filozofska istraživanja”, “Dometi”, “Kulturni radnik”, and others) on philosophy and literary theory, along with translations of scientific texts from English, Russian and Slovenian languages. Since 1982 Ms Premur has been a full member of Croatian Philosophical Society, and since 1987 a full member of the Society of Scientific and Technical Translators, for whom she has translated various texts from the aforementioned languages. Since 2003 she has been a member of the Croatian Society of Writers. In 1981. she accomplished advanced course of English language in London. In 1986. she was appointed as a Court interpreter for Russian language by the Court in Zagreb for which she passed the exam for interpreters. In 1995. she was also appointed for Court interpreter for Slovenian language.
In the period between 1990 and 1993 Ms Premur worked as a junior assistant at the Department of Philosophy, The Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, and along with holding seminars in the time period between the 1st of July 1991 and 31st of August 1993, she also worked as a junior researcher on the project “Problems of contrastive philosophy (Asian and Western)” (registration number of scientific workers of the Republic of Croatia 180 386). In 1997 she graduated from The Faculty of Philosophy in Ljubljana with a thesis “Dynamic structure of the conscience in Bergson’s philosophy”. She has been regularly publishing essays and scientific articles in magazines (“Filozofska istraživanja” and “Rival”) and on the radio (Third Programme of the Croatian Radio), where her original texts and translations of literary and philosophical texts (particularly Indian, Chinese and Japanese philosophies) are regularly broadcast. She has taken part in numerous conferences, both domestic and foreign as a lecturer (Colloquium of Asian Philosophies in Zagreb in 1988, International Congress in Ceret, France, in 1989; Congress in Bath, England, in 1992).
She also received Master’s degree in philology at The Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb in 1997, with a thesis “Theory of Translation”. Her master’s papers were also published by a publisher “Ladina”. She has taken part in various international congresses with independent lectures on theory of literature (Colloquium in Moscow in 1985; World Congress in Warsaw in 1995).
Apart from publishing independent papers, she has also been publishing translations of scientific and literary texts from English, Russian and Slovenian languages. In the academic year of 1997/98 she worked as a senior lecturer for philosophy, aesthetics and Russian language at the High School of Musical arts in Lovran, as well as an independent translator in Zagreb. In the period between 1998 and 2001 she worked as an assistant lecturer in the course for Oriental Philosophy at Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb. Apart from scientific work, Ms Premur is also engaged in literary work as an author, and she has published two novels, “Lovers” and “Confessions of a stranger/foreigner”, as well as short story collections, “Unusual Stories”, “Arabesque” and “Short Stories”. In 2005 she acquired a status of a freelance artist.
In the period from 2005 until her retirement in 2022 she published a number of works of various genres, collections of short stories (“Mirror”, “Two Short Stories”), novels (“Obsession”, “Who is Roger Moore”, “Cherry Blossom. One Japanese Story”, “Bud of a Chinese Orchid. One fantastic story”) and poetic works (“From Coast to Coast”, “Madrigal for Summer”, “Shards of Chinese Porcelain”, “Dreams of a Naked Body”, “Lighthouse”, “Vineyards at Dawn”, “Sails on the High Seas”, “Sun in Zenith”, “Four Changes of the Moon”). In the same period, she published a number of scientific works (“Comparative Philosophy”, “Models of Translation”, “Aspects of Translation Theory”, “Lao Tse”, “Philosophy of Life in Zen Buddhism”, “Sketches from Asia”, “Fragments of Ancient India”, “European Union – History and Future”) with incentive funds from the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports in Zagreb. In the academic year of 2002/2003 she completed the postgraduate seminar of European studies at the Academia Istropolitana Nova in Sveti Jura near Bratislava and published her graduation thesis in English with an excellent grade. In 2014, she participated in the international translation seminar of Slovenian literature that took place between August 19 and 24, 2014 in Novo Mesto organized by the Public Book Agency of the Republic of Slovenia. In 2016, she was in a residential program for Slovenian language translators organized by the Society of Slovenian Writers in Ljubljana. In 2018, she participated in the translation colloquium “The Golden Boat” in a town near Divača in Slovenia.
In 2001, she opened a publishing business called Naklada Lara and began cooperation with Slovenian and Austrian authors in the field of translating literary and scientific works, especially philosophy and literary theory. She collaborated on translation projects with the co-financing of the highest cultural institutions in Slovenia and Austria (Ministry of Culture, Public Agency for Books, Public Agency for Research Activities, Trubarjev Fund of the Society of Slovenian Writers in Ljubljana, and the Federal Ministry of Culture and Arts, the Ministry of Science in Vienna and Carinthia government in Klagenfurt). On five occasions, she was awarded the annual prize for the best translation of the year. The prizes were awarded by the Federal Ministry for Culture and the Arts in Vienna. This collaboration resulted in a rich oeuvre of translated works by the most respected Slovenian and Austrian literary and scientific authors. In 2010, she worked as an expert in evaluating translated literary works at the EACEA in Brussels, Belgium. In 2012, she gave two lectures on Asian philosophies at the Department of Philosophy of the Faculty of Philosophy at the residential program for Slovenian language translators in Ljubljana.