Literature vs. Nationalism. Contemporary Literature Moving Borders

Project duration: 1. 1. 2019–31. 12. 2019 (1st year)
EU support: Category 2 – Framework Partnership Agreement: 57.428,00 EUR (1st year); 68.258,40 EUR (2nd year); 85.619 EUR (3rd year)

The name of the project, Literature vs. Nationalism. Contemporary Literature Moving Borders, signifies the underlying theme of the selected books which deal with things that should never be forgotten – World War II, the holocaust, the shockingly quickly forgotten events of the Balkan area in the 90s, the violence against women and minorities in supposedly civil societies. While the extreme right wing parties are on the rise, we want to publish top quality literary works that teach us about that most important of emotions – empathy. With the project, we would like to move borders for contemporary authors and their works that is why the translation package is international and linguistically diverse and helps reaching new audiences for books from smaller languages.

To that end (in 2019) 4 novels and 1 short story collection will be translated from 5 different EU languages into Slovene, 1 novel from Slovene to German, 3 selected short stories collections from Slovene into English.

Inside the project, the books and authors will travel around EU – to main book fairs (Frankfurt, Leipzig, Vienna, London, Ljubljana, Milano) and to several other venues. Promotion will be focused on events with authors (2 author residencies in Novo mesto, readings in Ljubljana, Novo mesto, Vienna, Leipzig) and promotion of reading of short stories (festival Novo mesto short) and on promotion of small literatures abroad (beside presentation on international events also printing of excerpts of 6 Slovene books in English (Marko Sosič: Kruh, prah; Tadej Golob: Klošar; Mirt Komel: Medsočje; Svetlana Slapšak: Istomesečniki; Agata Tomažič: Tik pod nebom; Maja Gal Štromar: Ženska drugje – more about books on http://www.goga.si/en/) and renovation of application Slo books for Slovene authors. Special focus is also on education of translators from Slovene to bigger languages (Translation seminar in Novo mesto). (Source: EAC.)

List of books in 2019 (1st year of support):
– Jesús Carrasco: La tierra que pisamos / Zemlja, po kateri stopamo*. Translation from Spanish into Slovene: Urša Zabukovec.
– Aleksandar Hemon: The Question of Bruno / Vprašanje Bruna. Translation from English into Slovene: Irena Duša.
– Ralf Rothmann: Im Frühling sterben / Umreti spomladi. Translation from German into Slovene: Slavo Šerc.
– Gabi Gleichman: Odödlighetens elixir / Napoj nesmrtnosti. Translation from Swedish into Slovene: Danni Stražar.
– Kallia Papadaki: Dendriti*. Translation from Greek into Slovene: Lara Unuk.
– Mirt Komel: Pianistov dotik. Translation from Slovene into German: Sebastian Walcher.
– Agata Tomažič: Those Ripping Out Japanese Knotweed Can’t be all that bad. Translation from Slovene into English: Jeremi Slak.
– Vinko Möderndorfer: Life and other stories. Translation from Slovene into English: Gregor Timothy Čeh.
– Nejc Gazvoda: A trip and other stories. Translation from Slovene into English: Jason Blake.
*EUPL Award.

Goga Publishing House

(Leader) Novo mesto

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