Farewell, Cowboy: Rehearsed Reading and Book Launch

FAREWELL, COWBOY

Thursday, April 16th 13:00. Rehearsed reading of Farewell, Cowboy: the story of a suicide, a quest for truth, a reason for revenge and a wild love affair. One of the most popular Croatian novels of recent years is launched in English language version this week in London. This one-off performance brings together the director of the original theatre adaptation, Ivica Buljan, and two of Croatia’s most exemplary contemporary actors, Nataša Janjić and Marko Cindrić, for the London premiere. The performance will be followed by book signing with the author, Olja Savičević, and a glass of wine to toast the launch!

Farewell, Cowboy, the story:

 Farewell, Cowboy is a novel rich in local colour and sentiment, following the main character, Dada, who returns to her home town on the Adriatic coast in order to unravel the mystery of her brother Daniel’s death. Daniel, although young, smart and popular, threw himself under a train in mysterious circumstances a few years earlier. In her search for clues, Dada meets an array of eccentric characters and succumbs to the charms of the young gigolo Angelo, who is a part of a film crew shooting a Western on the nearby ‘prairie’. Slowly and painfully she discovers all there is to know about her brother’s death, andhow Angelo was caught up in it.

 In her debut novel, Savičević playfully transposes the genre of a traditional Western drama to the contemporary world, challenging the omnipotent heroes of childhood and questioning what constitutes heroism today. Her shabby seaside hometown provides the perfect backdrop for this tale of loss and redemption, redolent of transient glamour and unrealised small-town dreams.

http://www.londonbookandscreenweek.co.uk/event/farewell-cowboy-rehearsed-reading-and-book-launch/

Dorta Jagić-works/transl

MAIN WORKS

Sheet Over Head (Plahta preko glave, SKUD „I. G. Kovačić“, 1999), poetry
Tamagochi Died In My Arms (Tamagochi mi je umro na rukama, Meandarmedia, 2001), poetry
Kalodont (Kalodont, Zbornik dramskih tekstova alternativne kazališne scene, 2003), play
Devil and the Spinster (Đavo i usidjelica, AGM, 2003), poetry
Quadrature of a Rainbow (Kvadratura duge, AGM, 2007), poetry
Spine (Kičma, Aora, 2009), short stories
With a Tattoo You’re Never Alone (S tetovažom nisi sam, HDP i Jesenski & Turk, 2011), short stories
Sofa on the Square (Kauč na trgu, HDP, 2011), poetry
Little Dictionary of Biblical Women (Mali rječnik biblijskih žena, Mala zvona, 2013), short prose
Passes and Cracks (Prolazi i pukotine, Jesenski & Turk, 2015), travelogue
Kafka’s Knife (Kafkin nož, HDP, 2015.), poetry
Bigger than a House (Veće od kuće, Hena com, 2018), prose/poetic essays
A Flight Engineer at the End of the World (Inženjer leta na kraju svijeta, Naklada Ljevak, 2020), picture book
The Three Travelers to the land of Nut (Tri putnika u zemlju Nut, Mala zvona, 2020), picture book
A Night on the Land (Noć na zemlji, Naklada Ljevak, 2020), poetic prose


TRANSLATIONS

Sofa on the Square: Poland (Instytut Kultury Miejskie)
Vysoke ce: Slovakia (Skalna Ruža)

 

Karmela Špoljarić

Karmela Špoljarić was born in Zagreb. She graduated Croatian and South Slavic Philology and holds a masters’ degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. She writes prose and drama.

For her teen drama Zero kuna per minute she has been awarded the Croatian Ministry of Culture prize Marin Držić, and for her novel This isn’t Twin Peaks she has received the Croatian Writers’ Society prize Slavić. She published two short story collections, Be Careful What You Wish For and Carousel, and two novels, Major Tom and Rashomon.

Besides writing, she organizes various different creative writing workshops and seminars, such as How to start, and Fableing. She is the co-author of the project Exhibition of Stories and the book-therapy session called 4priče. put. She lives both in Zagreb and on the Island of Krk. She loves photography, travel and animals, and living in harmony with nature.

Croatia at the London Book Fair - Bilateral Poetry Party

An evening of poetry with a line-up of 3 Croatian Poets and 3 UK poets. Hosted by contemporary avant garde English poet and artist, Steven Fowler, this promises to be a lively evening of words and wine. Featuring Croatian poets Olja Savičević, Damir Šodan, Ana Brnardić and UK poets Stephen Watts and James Byrne. This event is bought to you by the Croatian Writer’s Society in co-operation with Istros Books and Arc Publications.

Featuring:

Stephen Watts is a London-based poet, editor and translator with cultural roots in the Swiss Italian Alps and Scotland. He has two bilingual English-Italian works, The Mountain Language/Lingua di montagna (2008) and Journey Across Breath/Tragitto nel respiro (2011), six other collections of poems, including Ancient Sunlight (Enitharmon, 2014) and The Blue Bag (Aark Arts, 2004).

James Byrne: James Byrne’s most recent poetry collection Blood/Sugar, was published by Arc Publications in 2009. Bones Will Crow: 15 Contemporary Burmese Poets, published in June 2012, is co-edited with ko ko thett and is the first anthology of Burmese poetry ever to be published in the West (Arc 2012). Byrne is the editor of The Wolf, an internationally-renowned poetry magazine, which he co-founded in 2002. He is the International Editor for Arc Publications.

Steven J. Fowler is a contemporary avant garde English poet and artist. Fowler was born in Truro, Cornwall, studied at the University of Durham and the University of London, Birkbeck college. He lives in London and has published 6 poetry collections: The Rottweiler’s guide to the Dog Owner (Eyewear press 2014); Enemies: the selected collaborations of SJ Fowler (Penned in the Margins 2013); Recipes (Red Ceilings press 2012); Minimum Security Prison Dentistry (Anything Anymore Anywhere press 2011); Fights (Veer books 2011) Red Museum (Knives forks & spoons press 2011). 

Olja Savičević is an awarded poet and novelist, who burst onto the authorial stage with her short story collection Make the Dog Laugh in 2006. Last year, her collection of poems Mamasafari and Other Things was short-listed for the ‘Kiklop Award for Best Collection of 2012′, awarded annually by the Pula Book Fair. Her best-selling book Farewell, Cowboy has already achieved great success in the region, and was even adapted into a stage play. Part of the novel, Farewell, Cowboy was included in Dalkey Archive’s Best European Fiction 2014. 

Damir Šodan is a Croatian poet, playwright and translator. He has published four volumes of poetry, two collections of plays and an anthology of Croatian “neorealist” poetry. He has translated many influential American poets into Croatian and lectured on the topic of poetry. A recipient of two playwriting awards, he has been internationally featured in The American Poetry Review (2007), New European Poets, (Graywolf Press, 2008), Les Poètes de la Méditerranée (Gallimard, 2010), The World Record (Bloodaxe, 2012) and The Hundred Years’ War (Bloodaxe, 2014). He lives in The Hague, the Netherlands. 

Ana Brnardić has published four books of poetry that received several prestigious Croatian awards for poetry: Pisaljka nekog mudraca (The Pen of a Sage, 1998. – Goran Award for young poets; Slavić Award for poetry debut), Valcer zmija (The Snake Waltz, 2005. – Kvirin Award for young poets), Postanak ptica (The Creation of Birds, 2009) and Uzbrdo (Uphill, 2015). With Adrian Oproiu, Ana translates modern and contemporary Romanian literature into Croatian. She is also the General Secretary of Croatian Writers Society.

http://www.londonbookandscreenweek.co.uk/event/croatian-poetry-party/

Maja Hrgović

Maja Hrgović (Split, 1980) is a journalist and author. She graduated in Croatian and English Language and Literature from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. She also studied Theatrology and Women’s Studies. A member of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), she won her first award for excellence in journalism in 2009. For her prose book The One Who Cares Less, Wins she won the national literature award Kiklop, and for her play Beautiful Ruins she received the Marin Držić Award.

She is the only female Croatian author included in the prestigious international English-speaking magazine The Granta Magazine. Among numerous regional and international anthologies that include her work, one of the most important ones is the Best European Fiction Anthology 2012. Her stories “Zlatka” and “Return” have been made into short films, and the latter premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. “Return” is an excerpt from Maja’s novel We’re Going to Life Better, nominated for the EU Prize for Literature in 2015.

Karmela Špoljarić-works/transl

MAIN WORKS


This Isn't Twin Peaks (Nije ovo Twin Peaks, AGM, 2013), a novel
Be Careful What You Wish For (Pazi što ćeš poželjeti, CeKaPe, 2013), short stories
Major Tom (Major Tom, Hena com, 2014), a novel
Rashomon (Rašomon, Hena com, 2020), a novel
Carousel (Ringišpil, Hena com, 2021), short stories

 

TRANSLATIONS

* none so far

Reception for the launch of ‘Farewell, Cowboy’

’Farewell, Cowboy’, the tough yet poetic debut novel from one of Croatia’s best contemporary authors – Olja Savičević – will be launched in the UK on April 14th at the London Book Fair. Following a toast to the author and translator – Celia Hawkesworth – on the Croatian stand (5C131), we will be moving to the Embassy in Bloomsbury for a reception hosted by the Ambassador, Dr. Ivan Grdešić.

There will be a short reading from the novel by the author, followed by the possibility to purchase the book and have it signed.

Organised by Istros Books in association with the Croatian Embassy in London.

http://www.londonbookandscreenweek.co.uk/event/reception-for-the-launch-of-farewell-cowboy/

Maja Hrgović-works/transl

MAIN WORKS


The One Who Cares Less, Wins (Pobjeđuje onaj kojem je manje stalo, Profil, 2010), short stories
Proximities, Nowheres and Pastries (Blizine, nigdine i fritule, Zana, 2011), co-author, short stories
We’re Going to Live Better (Živjet ćemo bolje, Arteist, 2013), novel
Woman, Mother, Idiot (Žena, majka, glupača, Arteist, 2014), essays

 

Luko Paljetak

Luko Paljetak (Dubrovnik, 1943) having graduated in Croatian and English Language and Literature at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zadar, he obtained his PhD in Philology from the University in Zagreb. He worked as a director and dramaturge at the Zadar Puppet Theatre, as an Assistant Professor at the University of Zadar and co-editor of the magazine Zadarska revija. Since 1978, he has been living in Dubrovnik, working as the editor, and later secretary of the Dubrovnik magazine.

Poet, translator, theatre and art critic, feuilletonist, essayist, children’s author, Luko Paljetak published a number of feuilletons, literary studies, graphic poetry books, several anthologies, two dozens of plays and important literary translations from English, French and Slovenian. Member of Croatian Writers' Association, Croatian Literary Translators Association, PEN, Croatian Association of Dramatic Artists, honorary member of the Slovene Writers' Association, Matrix Croatica, Brethren of the Croatian Dragon, regular member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts and corresponding member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Luko Paljetak won many literary awards, including the Tin Ujević Award and Vladimir Nazor Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. 

Main works/Translations
Sample translation
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