Ljubljana Reads Renata Zamida
The Pula Book Fair is one the most charming fairs I have come in contact with within the last ten years, and I haven’t seen a small amount of them. The title Fair is rather unsuitable because it is a festival, a meeting point, a sunny sanctuary for the authors, editors, translators, critics, and all the others who are involved in “literature” within this very region. In Pula, everybody has the time for that promised long coffee, or maybe two. Over the past few years, there has been almost no Book Fair(y) which wasn’t hosting some of the Slovenian authors, among others Tomaž Šalamun and Aleš Debeljak to whom this year a special programme is dedicated. For this very reason the plans involving the presentation of the Slovenian literature, which started developing on the initiative of the director of the Book Fair(y), were met by approval. The city of Ljubljana accepted the invitation without any hesitation, and the Slovenian Book Agency also joined the project. The connections between the authors from both of the cities are traditionally strong and friendly, being even more present within visual art or music, than within literature. After all, Pula is just 200 km away from Ljubljana, two hours by car. To the citizens of Pula, Ljubljana is even closer than Zagreb! We share the mythological biography of James Joyce. The only difference is that he didn’t get off the train by mistake in Pula, as he did in Ljubljana, but on purpose to teach English for several months in that Austro-Hungarian and rather cosmopolitan army port. Also, the first astronomic architect Herman Potočnik Noordung, originally from Pula, found its place in the Slovenian Vitanj, as well as in Pula city centre, on Kaštel. For that reason, it is not much of a coincidence that within the scope of this renowded literary event Slovenian capital will be presented to Pula’s audience – not just through books, but through culture in its broadest sense – through music, culinary art, painting, photography, illustration, and last but not least, through standards Ljubljana has reached and things it has accomplished as a city with the help of its citizens within the last ten years. Since last year Ljubljana has been carrying the title of the UNESCO City of Literature, it became the World Capital of the Book in the year 2010, this year it was the Green Capital of Europe and it has announced its candidacy for the European Capital of Culture 2025. Apart from that, Ljubljana also has its own book fair which tends to become a book festival. The Slovenian programme in Pula aims to present, through almost twenty events during a period of ten days, new faces still unknown in Croatia (and more south), but worthy of seeing (to mention only Boštjan Videmšek with his excellent book On the Run which presents a thematic extension of the last year’s focus at the Pula Festival, the Balkan migration route, or Agata Tomažić which has been a literary refreshment even in our area, then also the dark diva of the chanson and poetry Svetlana Makarovič who has been expecting the new translation of her works to Croatian for a long time). We will also bring to Pula the favourites of your festival’s audience, author Goran Vojnović, singer-songwriter Zoran Predin as well as the artistic collective and music band Leibach which filled Pula’s Amphitheatre several years ago. Furthermore, we will teach the Istrians something new about the blue fish... Generally speaking, this year we would like to unveil to the readers, and to the ones who read in publishers’ name, something exciting both regarding the book shelves and the programmes. Neighbours should know each other. Regardless of the ups and downs in the relationship on the political level between the neighbours, there are more things connecting us, than the ones dividing. The programme we are presenting at the Fair is naturally bigger than Ljubljana “itself”, it represents a link both for us and for you, dear neighbours. All of us are looking forward to the exciting meetings and talks at the Fair and in the town of Pula!
