Nada Gašić

Nada Gašić (Maribor, 1950) graduated in Sociology and Yugoslav Studies (now Croatian Studies) at the University of Zagreb. She worked as a lecturer at Charles University in Prague, and from 1976 to 1978 she held a scholarship from the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic. In the early 1990s she collaborated on Vladimir Anić’s Dictionary of the Croatian Language, which now enjoys a cult status in Croatia. She also worked as an editor and translator.

In 2007 she published her first novel Quiet Street, an Avenue of Trees which was shortlisted for all the literary prizes in Croatia and received the Croatian Writers’ Society prize for best first novel of the year. Her second novel, Water, Spider’s Web (2010), was awarded the prestigious City of Zagreb prize in 2011 and the Vladimir Nazor Award, the most important Croatian prize for the arts.

20th Book Fair(y): Fellowship programme – Kumpanija od libra

20th Book Fair(y): Fellowship programme – Kumpanija od libra

The Book Fair(y) in Istria is a prominent annual Croatian literary event and the biggest book festival in South-Eastern Europe. The Pula Festival of books and authors features more than 80 events and hosts more than 250 programme participants each year.
The 20th Book Fair(y) will be held from 4th to 14th December 2014, under the theme 1914. which will be dedicated not only to the World War I, but also to all the wars of the 20th century. A special dedication will go to our city, Pula, and its importance as the greatest military harbour of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This year, the Book Fair(y) continues with the international Fellowship programme, established last year. Programme will be held from 3rd to 7th December 2014., under the title Book Folks/Kumpanija od libra.

The Fellowship programme will be held in two sections:
1. Literary agents, editors and translators
2. Organizers of literary festivals, book fairs and residence programs

Fellowship programme opens up new opportunities for creating new models of collaborations between festivals, creating common production and exchanging programmes and authors. There will be also a chance to discuss in person the initiative of creating a European association of literary festivals, an idea born from the partnership between the Book Fair(y) in Istria and Festival Fabula (Slovenia).
 

Zoran Ferić

Zoran Ferić (Zagreb, 1961) graduated in Croatian Language and Literature at the University of Zagreb, works as a professor in gymnasium and is among the most widely read contemporary Croatian writers. 

His first short stories are being published in newspapers from 1984, but his first collection Walt Disney’s Mousetrap is first published relatively late, in 1996. His second short story collection An Angel in Offside, published in 2000 received prestigious Ksaver Šandor Gjalski Prize in 2000 and the Jutarnji List Award for the best work of prose fiction. For it he received the first and the last Dekada Prize founded to praise the fiction written in the past decade. His third book and the first novel The Death of the Little Match Girl is published in 2003. Two years after he publishes his second novel The Children of Patras. His novel Maya Calendar is published in 2011 and by then received several Awards – the Jutarnji List Award for the best work of prose fiction in 2011, the annual Vladimir Nazor Award and Kiklop Prize for the best novel of the year. 

Alone by the Sea (novel, 2015) received Fran Galović Award, and for The Travelling Theatre (novel, 2020) he was yet again awarded the prestigious Ksaver Šandor Gjalski Prize for Best Prose.  He is also the author of two collections of newspapers columns: The Letter of Discharge and Absurdity is an Infectious Disease. 

His novels were translated to English, German, Polish, Ukrainian, Slovenian, Bulgarian and Italian and his short story collections were translated on English, Hungarian, Polish, Slovakian, Spanish and Italian. He works and lives in Zagreb.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goran Ferčec

Goran Ferčec (Koprivnica, 1978) graduated in Dramaturgy from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. He is an editorial board member of the Performing Arts Journal Frakcija (Zagreb) and co-founder of the DK – dramaturgy collective initiative. Since 2005, he has been publishing performance texts and theory in Croatian and international journals. His novel There Will Be No Miracles Here (2011) was shortlisted for all relevant literary awards in Croatia, receiving Croatian Ministry of Culture Award.

His performance and dramatic texts have been performed by international ensembles, such as the fringe ensemble from Bonn. For his theatre work he received the following awards: Austrian Cultural Forum Award (Vienna, 2007), Croatian Theatre Award (Zagreb, 2014), Borštnik Festival Award for dramaturgy (Ljubljana, 2014 and 2015) and Veljko Maričić Award for dramaturgy (Rijeka, 2014).

He participated in numerous artist residencies, such as Artist-in-residence grant Milo Dor (Vienna), Writers residency at The International Writers House in Graz (2014), Performative arts residency Dialoghi (Codroipo) and Absolute Modern in Skopje.

Ivica Đikić

Ivica Djikić (Tomislavgrad, 1977) has funneled all his experience as a journalist into novels with its sophisticated, razor-sharp prose. He began working at the Slobodna Dalmacija newspaper when he was only sixteen, going on to work at the Feral Tribune, Novi List and now as director of the weekly magazine Novosti, in addition to authoring and co-authoring biographies on both former Croatian president Stipe Mesić, former general Ante Gotovina and the Turkish millionaire Şarik Tara.

Academy Award winner Danis Tanović directed a movie 'Cirkus Columbia' (2010) made after Djikic’s novel and with Djikić as a co-screenwriter.

Everything he writes is based on real cases and real people, but as the opening lines of his second novel I Dreamed of Elephants express, in a quote from Saramago (The Elephant’s Journey), “In truth, I say to you, it is better to be a novelist, a fiction writer, a liar.” His novels Cirkus Columbia and I Dreamed of Elephants are translated into German, Italian, Spanish and Hungarian.
 

9th BOOK FAIR(Y) in Istria

Pula Festival of Books and Authors known as 9th BOOK FAIR(Y) will be held this year from 5 to 15 December with the main theme: Socialism on the Bench having in focus Contemporary Russian Literature and Vojvodina – Region in the Region.

FROM UTOPIA TO MIMESIS
The overarching theme and focal points of the 19th Book Fair(y) in Istria are intertwined with the social, cultural and literary contexts of socialism. Historically speaking, Europe (including Croatia) got rid of socialism quite recently, and is left today with only a critical memory of an ideology despised by many. The theme Socialism on the Bench opens up a wide palette of critical historical, political, economic, social and cultural reflections on state socialism and self-management, its consequences and popular nostalgia.

The central theme Socialism on the Bench will be carried out in collaboration with the Centre for Cultural and Historical Research of Socialism (CKPIS), Juraj Dobrila University of Pula (Igor Duda, Lada Duraković, Boris Koroman, Andrea Matošević). The scientific and humanistic approach to the subject represents a powerful impulse and a potential for entering into a meaningful epistemic, methodological and hermeneutic dialogue with researchers of socialism, as well as a kind of "detabooization" of a topic undesirable within the Croatian scientific circles for a long time. The scientific production will go in different directions and will be represented in a number of ways – through research, an anthology, round table debates, lectures, book promotions...

The Fair(y)'s programme, with its focus on two topics: the Contemporary Russian Literature and Vojvodina – Region in the Region will directly address the central theme as significant historical heritage on which there lies a messianic vision of the present, as well as a glimpse of the future.

Despite inhuman repression and pervasive censorship in all spheres of society, Russia (former Soviet Union), the longest-lived socialist state, has produced an enviable literary and cultural heritage, a tradition that the post-socialist, contemporary Russian literature heavily, sometimes even completely, relies on. This focal point of the 19th Book Fair(y) in Istria will be carried out in collaboration with the Department of Russian Language and Literature (Živa Benčić-Primc, Ivana Peruško, Jasmina Vojvodić) and the Department of East Slavic Languages and Literatures, the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. The outline of contemporary Russian literature will focus on the Russian literary classics of the 20th century, the Soviet dissident authors whose literary production was marked by the relationship with the Soviet state and socialism on one hand and, on the other, with contemporary (and committed) Russian authors of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

The traditional manifestation Days of Vojvodina in Istria will present most of its contents at the 19th Fair(y), through the programme Vojvodina – Region in the Region. The contemporary Vojvodian cultural scene will be introduced through inter-media approach, including a concert, an exhibition and a movie, while also addressing the Fair(y)'s thematic focus during round table debates and authors' introductions.

(Source: pfb)
(D.H., 03.12.2013)

Daša Drndić

Daša Drndić (August 10, 1946, Zagreb  - June 5, 2018, Rijeka) is an author of prose, literary criticism, analytical texts, translations and plays, graduated in English Language and Literature at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade. As a Fulbright scholar, she studied at the Southern Illinois University and Case Western Reserve University, and spent some years teaching in Canada.

She worked as an editor for the publishing house Vuk Karadžić, at Radio-television Belgrade and as an English language teacher at the Public University Đuro Salaj. She was an associate professor at the University of Rijeka where she held lectures in modern British literature and English language.

Her novel Sonnenschein was awarded Independent Foreign Fiction Readers Prize 2013, Kiklop Award for the best literary work of the year 2007, Fran Galović Prize 2007, and her novel Belladonna received Kiklop Award for the best literary work of the year 2013. In 2014, she received the international literary prize Prozart.


 

Slavenka Drakulić

Slavenka Drakulić (Rijeka, 1949) is an author whose books and essays have been translated into more than twenty languages. Her fiction explores the female body, illness and trauma. Her novel S.: A Novel About the Balkans, dealing with the cruelty of war and rape victims, was made into a feature film As If I Am Not There, directed by Juanita Wilson.

Drakulić has also published five non-fiction books, mostly writing about life in communist and post-communist countries. Drakulić is a contributing editor in The Nation (US) and a freelance author whose essays have appeared in The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine and The New York Review of Books. She contributes to Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), Internazionale (Italy), Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), The Guardian (UK), Eurozine and other newspapers and magazines.

She is the recipient of the 2004 Leipzig Book Fair Award for European Understanding. At the Prague Writers’ Festival 2010, she was proclaimed as one of the most influential European writers of our time.

 

Boris Dežulović

Boris Dežulović (1964) was born in Split, where he almost completed a degree in Fine Arts and Art History. Following his escapades in football, rock and roll, comics and alternative theatre, he strayed into journalism in the mid-1980s as a layout artist of the magazine Omladinska iskra, where he published his first articles and edited a satirical feuilleton.

From 1988 he worked as an editor at Feral, the satirical supplement of the newspaper Nedjeljna Dalmacija and Slobodna Dalmacija, which was established as the independent weekly Feral Tribune in 1993. Since 1999, he has been an ongoing columnist for Globus (Zagreb), Slobodna Dalmacija (Split), Dnevnik (Ljubljana) and Oslobođenje (Sarajevo), as well as a regular contributor to a wide range of media in the region.

Since 2007 he and Predrag Lucić have been staging a poetic/satirical cabaret The Melody of Flash and Storm – a reference to two controversial Croatian military offensives in 1995 – in the countries of ex-Yugoslavia. His novel Christkind received Jutarnji list Award for best prose work. Dežulović also won the 2013 European Press Prize in the Commentator category.

Ratko Cvetnić

Ratko Cvetnić (Zagreb, 1957) studied Art History and Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. Other than being an author, translator and publicist, he has been working as a professional sports official at the Zagreb Sport Association. He published three novels: Short Outing (1996), Half-Asleep (2009) and History of the Institute (2013) that deal with the subject of the Croatian Homeland War and recent Croatian history.

For his novels Short Outing and Half-Asleep he received Ksaver Šandor Gjalski Award for best prose work. In 2016, he was inaugurated in the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts for his contribution to literature.

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