Regardless of the distinctly male standpoint, this year's international literary festival Vilenica, organized by the Slovene Writers Association and the Vilenica Cultural Society from Sežana, again focuses on the best authors and literature of Middle Europe, and of other countries of Europe and the world. In the foreground of the festival taking place this week is also India. Alongside the 10th volume of the Vilenica Anthologies titled Kavita (“poetry” in Hindi), they will host also Haraprasad Das, Sitanshu Yashaschandra and K. Satchidanandan.
Milan Jesih in English, and the prize winners
This year everything revolves around the winner of the Vilenica 2015 prize, the Czech writer Jáchym Topol, who became a recognisable European prose writer by infusing both personal and collective experiences into his literary opus. Traditionally, the central ceremony will take place on Saturday in the Vilenica Cave, where this year’s Vilenica laureate will receive the Festival’s top prize from the hand of the President of the Slovenian Writers Association Ivo Svetina. The laureate, known to Slovenian readers through his novels Sister, Angel and Cold country, all translated in the Slovenian language, was selected by the 12-member jury presided by Andrej Blatnik.
This year’s Slovene Author in Focus is the writer, poet, and playwright Milan Jesih, whose poems express artistic sensitivity and are always filled with an undulating magic of language. Milan Jesih will participate in the festival events several times. The American publishing house Dalkey Archive Press will publish his Selected Poems, translated by Nada Grošelj. One of the guests will be also the American publisher John O'Brien, who has been returning to Vilenica for several years, mainly because of his fascination with the festival. His previously mentioned publishing house has been publishing translations of works of the Slovenian writers for a number of years.
The core idea of the festival
The central point of the festival are, as every year until now, the literary readings. A number of literary creators will perform, among them Elke Laznia from Austria, Stefano Benni from Italy, Sylwia Chutnik from Poland, Antanas Gailius from Lithuania, the writer from Bosnia Mirko Božić, Artis Ostups from Latvia, Christoph Simon from Switzerland, Etgar Kereta from Israel, and Andrej Hočevar and Polona Glavan. One of the central figures is most certainly the last year's laureate, the Hungarian writer Lászlo Krasznahorkai. His novel War & War, translated by Marjanca Mihelič, was published by the Cankarjeva založba publishing house as a part of the Vilenica collection.
With its prestigious position among the European festivals, Vilenica also offers the opportunity for cultural exchange between authors and literary intermediaries – the guests at the festival are also publishers, translators, and directors of festivals from Macedonia, Ireland, Georgia and other countries.