Meta Grosman

Meta Grosman was born in Ljubljana on 18 May 1936. She completed the Classical Gymnasium and studied at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana, graduating in 1960 in English and German.

She continued abroad at the University of Cambridge, then in London from 1963 to 1964, and in the United States, where she earned a master's degree at Miami University in Ohio in 1965. In 1971 she received her doctorate from the University of Ljubljana with a dissertation on the relationship between the reader and the literary work in English literary criticism from 1921 to 1961. Her grandfather was Karol Grossmann, an early figure in Slovenian film.

Grosman became a full professor of English and American literature in the Department of English and American Studies at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. She taught the modern English novel and Anglo-American literary theory and criticism. In 1987-88 she was a Fulbright visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

She headed the English department for nearly a decade, strengthening linguistics and English teaching methodology, and was credited with moving instruction toward student centred forms. She was a key figure in establishing the Department of Translation and Interpreting. In 1993 she founded the Slovene Association for the Study of English and became its first president. From 1995 she led the Slovenian Reading Association, later as honorary president. She joined the FILLM committee in 1996 and served as vice president from 2002 to 2006. She also worked on Slovenia's National Programme for the Development of Literacy (2006) and sat on editorial boards including Otrok in knjiga and the European Journal of English Studies.

Among her publications are Zagovor branja, Razseznost branja, studies on intercultural reading and translation, and classroom companions such as school-hour guides to Hamlet and The Great Gatsby. She received faculty and SOVA didactic awards in 2006, a Ministry of Education university award in 1997, the IBBY Slovenia prize in 2011, and emerita professor status from the University of Ljubljana.

Public profiles of Grosman focused on her scholarly and civic work rather than private family details beyond her descent from film pioneer Karol Grossmann. She spoke often about the value of the mother tongue alongside multilingual reading, arguing that a person's first language shapes how they name the world and relate to others. In later years she remained active in reading promotion and literary education in Slovenia.

Meta Grosman died in Ljubljana on 11 October 2026 at the age of 90. Slovenian newspapers and RTV Slovenija reported the death, noting her work as a professor of English and American literature and as honorary president of the reading association. The cause of death was not highlighted in the first national reports. Tributes stressed her role in modernising literary teaching and in promoting reading and the Slovenian language.

Grosman is remembered as one of Slovenia's leading scholars of reading and of English literary studies. IBBY Slovenia called her a central figure in literary theory and criticism, reception studies, literature didactics and intercultural reading, and a key person in founding the translation and interpreting department. Colleagues linked her name to a lasting shift toward student centred university teaching in English studies.

Her books and teacher seminars shaped how reading was taught in Slovenian schools, and her public comments kept the mother tongue at the centre of literacy debates even as English reading grew. The University of Ljubljana's emerita title and the IBBY Slovenia award marked that dual academic and civic influence.