Reading Balkans

In this series of short presentations you will hear from: Nora Verde, Nenad Rizvanović, Bojan Krivokapić, Semira Kentrić and Sonja Porle. They speak about their work, their past and future projects and their experiences with residencies. They all agree that residencies are an important resource for authors, giving them the time and the means to write, as well as being an excellent opportunity for networking.

Traduki has published a new call for residencies. Eligible applicants are writers, translators and book professionals from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia. Deadline for submitting applications is April 17, 2022.

For the second half of 2022, residencies are available in 10 cities in Southeast Europe: Belgrade, Bucharest, Cetinje, Novo Mesto, Prishtina, Sarajevo, Skopje, Sofia, Split and Tirana for the duration of 2–6 weeks. Fellowships cover travel costs, accommodation in a fully furnished writers’ apartment as well as subsistence of 250 € per week.

You can apply for translation residencies, writing residencies, interdisciplinary cooperation residencies, practical exchange residencies, research trips and virtual residencies; each with their own specifics.

Selected candidates will be informed no later than May 15th, 2022.

For more information, application guidelines, and application form, visit Traduki’s website.

One-day online publishing conference and matchmaking session

March 14, 2022, 10:00–12:00 (CEST)
Registration required (MS Teams)

meet select editors and authors from Southeast Europe • discover insights by publishing professionals • find partners

Goga Publishing invites you to the second Reading Balkans virtual networking meeting with a dedicated matchmaking session. The event, highlighting some of the best publishers from Southeast Europe, will help international publishing professionals get better acquiainted with authors from Southeast Europe, understand the publishing landscape, and find new partners.

About the conference

Following on the success of the first Rading Balkans: Connecting Publishers conference, the second edition will continue to promote the resilience and recovery of the publishing sector, help professionals meet their counterparts, and make authors from the Southeast Europe more visible. The event, promoting transnational circulation of literary works, will be an opportunity for discovery and exchange of ideas. Especially with the currently open calls for proposals within the Creative Europe Programme, the meeting will help publishers forge new partnerships.

Register now!

What to expect

The event will consist of three parts:

• short talks by publishing professionals
• publishers’ introductions
• matchmaking

During the first part, invited writers and publishing professionals will discuss the reasons for, as well as the specifics of, translating authors from Southeast Europe and share their insights. Speakers include:

• Velibor Ćolić (France/Bosnia and Herzegovina)
• Marko Pogačar (Croatia)
• Dinko Kreho (Croatia)
• Vladimir Jankovski (North Macedonia)
• Mateja Lazar (Slovenia)

In the second part, select publishers will introduce their programs. Speakers include:

• Vladislav Bajac (Geopoetika, Serbia)
• Biljana Crvenkovska (Strange Forest Publishing, North Macedonia)
• Maja Šučur (LUD Literatura, Slovenia)
• Marija Dragnić (Enklava, Serbia)

The third part will offer matchmaking opportunities for quick one-on-one sessions.

In 2019, several refugees, living in Ljubljana, Slovenia, have participated in a special part of the Reading Balkans – Borders vs. Frontiers project. The participants wrote short stories during a workshop, led by Andraž Rožman, the author of the narrative nonfiction novel Three Memories, and Asja Hrvatin, and presented them to the public at Vodnikova Domačija in Ljubljana. The participants were: Somaye Asadpour and Karla Kos, Viktoria Pospelova and Mohamed Abdul Al Munem. Somaya and Karla wrote a story about a meeting of two families with different cultural backgrounds. Mohamed Abdul Al Munem wrote about publishing in Aleppo, while Viktoria wrote a touching story about different states of mind.

The activities continued in 2021 with short video stories, in which Viktoria Pospelova, Noorullah Otiyakhel, Mohamad al Burai, and Mohamad Abdul Muneem talk about refugee routes, bureaucratic obstacles, and life in Slovenia.

Viktoria Pospelova

Noorullah Otiyakhel

Mohamad al Burai

Mohamad Abdul Muneem

One-day online publishing conference and matchmaking session

September 2, 2021, 10:00–13:00 (CEST)
Registration required

meet select editors and authors from Southeast Europe • discover insights by publishing professionals • find partners

Goga Publishing invites you to a special Reading Balkans virtual networking meeting with a dedicated matchmaking session. The event, highlighting some of the best publishers from Southeast Europe, will help international publishing professionals get better acquiainted with authors from Southeast Europe and find new partners.

About the conference

Since the COVID-19 crisis, publishing has been faced with amplified challenges, particularly in the field of international activities. With major bookfairs having been postponed or cancelled, the reality of regular B2B meetings was radically altered, making networking difficult.

To promote the resilience and recovery of the publishing sector, help professionals meet their counterparts, and make authors from the Southeast Europe more visible, the Reading Balkans project (led by Goga Publishing, Slovenia) will organise a virtual networking and matchmaking event. The event, promoting transnational circulation of literary works, will be an opportunity for discovery and exchange of ideas. Especially with the currently open calls for proposals within the Creative Europe Programme, the meeting will help publishers forge new partnerships.

Register now!

What to expect

The event will consist of three parts:

• short talks by publishing professionals
• publishers’ introductions
• matchmaking

During the first part, invited publishing professionals will discuss the reasons for as well as specifics of translating authors from Southeast Europe and share their insights. This part will also provide an overview of different funding mechanisms and platforms. It will include contributions from

• Susan Curtis (Istros Books),
• Andrej Lovšin (Traduki),
• Hana Stojić (Traduki),
• Renata Zamida (former director of the Slovenian Book Agency).

In the second part, select publishers will introduce their finest authors, of whom one per publisher will also be present in person. Invited publishers:

• Buybook (Bosnia and Herzegovina),
• Geopoetika (Serbia),
• Goga Publishing (Slovenia),
• OceanMore (Croatia),
• Partizanska knjiga (Serbia),
• Sandorf (Croatia).

The third part will offer matchmaking opportunities for quick one-on-one sessions.

The Reading Balkans residency selection commitee has carefully reviewed 101 valid applications and selected 19 applicants.

The selected authors will be hosted by Publishing House Goga (Novo mesto, Slovenia), Krokodil (Beograd, Serbia), Goten Publishing (Skopje, North Macedonia), Udruga Kurs (Split, Croatia), Poeteka (Tirana, Albania), Qendra Multimedia  (Prishtina, Kosovo), PEN BIH (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hercegovina).

The members of the selection committee would like to express their sincere gratitude to all applicants for their interest and show their appreciation of the time and effort the applicants invested in preparing their applications.

The results of the open call are listed in the table below.

The Literary Residence Program is a part of the Reading Balkans project, which  is a cooperation project of the Publishing House Goga (Slo), Goten Publishing (MK), Krokodil (Srb), Udruga Kurs (Cro), Poeteka (Alb), Qendra Multimedia (Kos), PEN Centre (BIH) and partners. 

The Reading Balkans project is supported by the EU Creative Europe program.

The Literary Residence Program within the Reading Balkans project is supported by the TRADUKI network. 

At a well-attended press conference held on the 30th of June at the Goga Bookstore in Novo Mesto, we shared the news on our project Reading Balkans: Borders vs. Frontiers with Slovenian journalists.

The project is already known and recognizable in Novo Mesto, Slovenia, and Southeast Europe since it is a continuation of the project Reading Balkans: South and East Reach West that was supported by Creative Europe in 2017. The new two-year edition of the Reading Balkans project started in autumn last year. This time our focus is on borders and multilingualism in literature as well as cooperation with refugee writers. Against nationalism, exclusion, and fear, and for connecting, empathy, and solidarity through literature, creativity, mobility, and dialog – these are the main visions of the project that are realised through the promotion of writers (website, mobile application, and international book fairs) and the literary residency program. We planned 42 one-month writers’ residencies in seven different countries and the promotion of writers at eight festivals with the two main themes: Borders vs. Frontiers and Exile in Language.

The literary residency program is a cooperation of the Publishing House Goga (SI), Goten Publishing (MK), Udruženje Krokodil (SRB), Udruga Kurs (CRO), Poeteka (AL), Qendra Multimedia (Kosovo), PEN Centre (BIH), Traduki and other partners.

In the last couple of months, the borders as a central theme of the project got the central position in our personal and professional lives, too. Since Reading Balkans is based on travel, mobility, and crossing borders, we are doing our best to continue the project within the new challenges of pandemic travel restrictions. Although most of the international promotion has moved online, we are hopeful to be able to visit the Frankfurt Book Fair this October. Our spring residencies were postponed due to the lockdowns, but summer brought some more travelling.

Senka Marić, a writer from Bosnia and Herzegovina was at Krokodil residency in Belgrade in June. Local readers had a chance to get to know her better during the literary event. She wrote a diary about her stay in Belgrade for one of the most prominent Serbian dallies, Danas.

Jasmina Topić, a writer from Serbia, is now in residence at P.E.N. Sarajevo while a writer from Bosnia and Herzegovina Faruk Šehić is at Goga in Novo Mesto. The literary event with Jasmina Topić will be held in Sarajevo on 24^th July at Museum of Theatre and Theatre Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Literary event with Faruk Šehić will be held on the 7^th July at Goga in Novo Mesto and on the 8^th July at Vodnikova domačija in Ljubljana.

Dinko Kreho, a writer from Croatia, will spend July at Krokodil residency and Jean Lorrin Sterian, an author from Romania is going to Qendra in Priština for the August residency.

Everything is prepared for Petar Andonovski, a Macedonian writer and winner of this year’s European Prize for Literature to come to Novo Mesto and for a Macedonian writer Nikolina Andonova Šopova to start her residency at Kurs in Split, but at this moment we have to wait for a better epidemic situation in the Balkans.

Special thanks go to Slovenian Ministry of Culture and The Municipality of Novo Mesto who understood the importance of the project and helped us overcome bureaucratic challenges and brought Faruk Šehić to Slovenia.

The Reading Balkans project is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

We will be holding a press conference for Slovenian media in the Bookstoore Goga in Novo Mesto on 30 June at 10 a.m.

Since the main activities of the project are connected to literary residencies programme, travel and mobility we have to deal with many challanges due to the coronavirus pandemic but we continue to connect writers from the Southeast Europe (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia) and to fight nationalism and intolerance through dialogue and literature.

Join us in Novo Mesto press conference for all the information about the future plans, events and residence programmes within the Reading Balkans project!

We are excited to announce that Peter Andonovski, the laureate of the European Union Prize for Literature 2020 for North Macedonia for the book Страв од варвари/ Fear of Barbarians (Ili-Ili, Skopje, 2018), will be the guest author of the Reading Balkans Residency Programme in Novo mesto in Slovenia in July this year.

Congratulations to Peter Andonovski and to all the laureates, among others, Lana Bastašić (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Stefan Bošković (Montenegro) who were also the authors in residence in previous years of the Reading Balkans programme.

The EUPL is organised by a Consortium comprising the European Writers’ Council (EWC), the Federation of European Publishers (FEP), and the European and International Booksellers Federation (EIBF), with the support of the European Commission. The award is funded by Creative Europe.

Reading Balkans: Borders vs. Frontiers is a continuation of the project Reading Balkans that was supported by Creative Europe in 2017. This time we have put in the focus topics of borders and cooperation with refugee writers – at the time when old wounds from Balkan Wars have not yet been healed, the question of our borders still not solved, new politics of fear and nationalism is built when refugees are crossing our region (and actual border walls are built as well) – through our activities we want to work on dialogue, debate and deeper understanding of our actual problems.

The project is a cooperation of the Publishing House Goga (SI), Goten Publishing (MK), Udruženje Krokodil (SRB), Udruga Kurs (CRO), Poeteka (AL), Qendra Multimedia (Kosovo), PEN Centre (BIH), Traduki and other sponsors and donators. The Reading Balkans project is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

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Dear authors and friends,

Due to the coronavirus outbreak, all Residencies within the Reading Balkans program 2020 have been postponed until further notice.

We will keep an eye on the situation and keep you informed.

Stay safe and healthy,

Reading Balkans Board

Reading Balkans: Borders vs. Frontiers

Open Call – Results

Literary Residence Program

Reading Balkans Residency

Read more

The Residency is pre arranged by Reading Balkans project in cooperation with the Publishing House Goga (Slo), Goten Publishing (MK), Krokodil (Srb), Udruga Kurs (Cro), Poeteka (Alb), Qendra Multimedia (Kos), PEN BIH and S. Fischer Stiftung (De) & partners.

The Literary Residence Programme ‘Reading Balkans 2020’ is open to welcome fiction writers, poets, essayists, playwrights, screenplay writers and comic book writers from Southeast Europe (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Albania, Romania, Montenegro, Bulgaria).

South and East reaches West – digital platform for promotion of writers in post-conflict societies

Open Call – Results

Literary Residence Program

Reading Balkans Residency

The Reading Balkans Board received 96 applications for this call.  21 applicants were selected.

The selected applicants for residency Goga (Novo mesto) are:

• Marko Vidojković
• Renato Baretić
• Antonela Marušić

The selected applicants for residency Krokodil (Beograd) are:

• Azem Deliu
• Ana Schnabl
• Lana Bastašić

The selected applicants for residency Goten (Skopje) are:

• Zdravka Evtimova
• Jedrt Lapuh Maležič
• Marija Pavlović

The selected applicants for residency Udruga Kurs (Split) are:

• Tanja Šljivar
• Anja Golob
• Igor Angjelkov

The selected applicants for residency Poeteka (Tirana) are:

• Alen Brlek
• Vitomirka Trebovac
• Marko Tomaš

The selected applicants for residency Qendra Multimedia (Prishtina) are:

• Ivan Shopov
• Stefan Bošković
• Jasna Dimitrijević

The selected applicants for residency PEN BIH (Sarajevo) are:

• Daim Miftari
• Dijana Matković
• Nikola Nikolić

We thank all applicants for the interest they have shown and the time and effort they have invested in preparing their application.

Reading Balkans Board

South and East reaches West – digital platform for promotion of writers in post-conflict societies

Open Call – Results

Literary Residence Program

Reading Balkans Residency – Ukraine 2018

The Reading Balkans Board received 19 applications for this call.  3 applicants were selected.

The selected applicants are:

• Kateryna Kalytko for the residency in Novo mesto (Slovenia)
• Andriy Ljubka for the residency in Belgrade (Serbia)
• Viktoria Khomenko for the residency in Skopje (Macedonia)

We thank all applicants for the interest they have shown and the time and effort they have invested in preparing their application.

Reading Balkans Board

South and East reaches West – digital platform for promotion of writers in post-conflict societies

Open Call

Literary Residence Program

Reading Balkans Residency – Ukraine 2018

Read more