Page 105 - Wonderful Women of Virtue.cdr

One of the myths of creative and multitalented people may be that they can choose whatever personal and career paths they want. Having many interests and
Zana Coven abilities can make for a rich and satisfying life, but also be a source of inspiration to others. Zana Coven's full story follows:

Zana Coven ( Zanka Zana Boškovi Coven) was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina, former Yugoslavia. She passed her childhood there and studied English
language and literature. After graduation she moved to Belgrade to study Spanish and Italian and than moved to Italy for further studies. Apart of languages she
also studied sax and later on the Academy of art Brera in Milano, artefici department. There she met a man there who later became her husband. She worked as a
translator, teacher, coordinator and supervised of cultural projects for many years. She was one of co-founder of jazz experiment group Mode and played sax and
clarinet till May 2019. Hera tivities spreading from music to art, from painting to literature. As a painter she had several exhibitions around Italy and Spain but
her favourite exhibition was in 2017 in Široki Brijeg, Bosnia Herzegovina, that is the origin place of her family. This exhibition she dedicated to her parents.
Apart of music and painting , the third love of her is literature. She writes poetry, haiku, short stories, travel books in English, Spanish, Italian and Croatian. She
wrote 4 books of poetry, " Lo dico alla luna," in Italian, " Entre sol y sombra" in Spanish, " Zaboravljena istinu" (Forgotten in averse") and "Jedna Ljubav" ( One
love") in Croatian languages. Her poetry Me short stpries, as well ashaiku are published in many books, magazines, almanachs, blogs and herhaiku are also
published in Široki international magazine Asahi haikust. She got also a lot of international prizes among them the special prize of Italian literature critics in
Milano in May 2019, The Golden pen in Uzbekistan, first prize for haiku in European championship in Romania, the secon prize for short stories in Serbia.
Lately her poem was published in Portuguese literature journal. She works and lives between Italy and Spain, Milano and Barcelona.

If I look back to my roots I can see that all around me was favourable for me to build up the personality I am now, a simple woman who has been free to develop
the way she wanted. Never looking the connection with reality, never pretending to be better of others, humble and great worker. Born in Yugoslavia, the
country that does not exist anymore, in the time of marshal Tito means I had all opportunities to freely try and experiment everything I wanted. We had free
excellent education , free of for very small fee any activity from music to sports, from science to any kind of art. Life of my family had a great security in financial
and health fields that left a lot of time to self development. I had unconditional moral support of my parents during my childhood and youth. My father himself
spoke several languages so he started to introduce me into the magical world of foreign language studies. Today I am fluent in English, Spanish, Italian, Croat,
Serbian, Bosnian ( the last 3 are languages of ex Yugoslavia). I write in all of them my poetry, short stories and travel books. My father was also my first art teacher
introducing me visual proportions, perspective, colour games and first drawing and painting techniques from which I begun to experiment and look for my own
way. My mother was more practical. She taught me to respect rules, than to break them, to be persistent, sincere, confidential, serious when it is needed. Bring to
the end what we started to do, never to leave for tomorrow what can be done today, daydreaming is the best wasted time, believe in yourself so others will believe
in you too, respect others to be respected, be always a kind of secret... are some of my mother life rules. She also insisted always to be very ordinate and keep all
around me in order so I could feel myself in please. Both of them tought me to persevere and never give up in front of obstacles, a great self confidence but never
consider myself not above not under others. It was the determinate point in all my life.

I have always been turned to myself. Even in turbulent adolescent time when young people rebel themselves to all around them from parents care that becomes
suffocating to injustice of society, when they think to be able to change the world, when young are full of ideals as a reason of their lived I was a black sheep. I felt
that we can change the world only if we work on ourselves. I was always turned to myself trying to see and understand things and events my way and thinking and
believing that all world for me comes from inside of me. I was aware that I could not control an external world but I could try to control my own inner world and
try to be in please with myself. I was well aware that all that was external was as I see it and live it. If I was happy all was bright, if I was sad everything was disparate

102 | Dr. K.C. Sethi & Sunita Sethi 25 Wonderful Women of Virtue | 103