Slovenia, guest of honour at the book fair in Prague, 5-8 May 2005

It would be hard to imagine a better environment for the greatest Slovene literary presentation abroad than is provided by the Prague book fair, which is better and more vivacious every year, as literary and cultural ties between Slovenia and the Czech Republic have been close for centuries. The most prominent Slovene poet France Prešeren (1800-1849) in one of his poems depicted the beauty of a girl from Brno; the poet, prose writer and father of the Slovene literary science Fran Levstik (1831-1887) was attending the theological seminary in Olomouc until he was forced to leave it because of the alleged immorality of his first collection of poetry. The play written by the most important Slovene novelist and playwright Ivan Cankar (1876-1918) Za narodov blagor, published in the book in 1901, was first staged in Prague, and in 2005 it will be exactly 100 years since the performance. The most frequently translated Slovene novel, Alamut by Vladimir Bartol (1903-1967), published in 1938, was translated into Czech soon after it came out; almost fifty years later, in the 1980's, through the French and the Spanish translations, this story of the religious fanaticism circled the globe. In the 1940's, the literary historian Oton Berkopec (1906-1988), who spent most of his life in Prague, compiled two anthologies of Slovene poetry in Czech, which were the first two comprehensive presentations of Slovene literature in a foreign language.
Slovene-Czech literary ties have continued to this day. Czech is the language into which the greatest amount of Slovene literature is translated (apart from Croatian); during the last decade, on the average five books by Slovene authors have been published in Czech every year. Since Slovenia became an independent state in 1991, Slovene literature has gained recognition in the world: more than sixty modern Slovene authors have been published in various languages. Tomaž Šalamun, Drago Jančar and Aleš Debeljak each pride themselves with more than thirty translated books. They will all come to Prague, and so will Svetlana Makarovič, a brilliant poet and performer of her poetry, Dane Zajc, who put an indelible mark on the poets of the younger generation, and more than twenty other renowned poets and prose writers. They will participate in the readings in Slovene, Czech and English, take part in round-table discussions about the responsibility of the state towards literature, the position of women in contemporary literary arena, implications of market economy for publishing and other topics, sign their books in Czech translation and answer the questions about their work.
Slovene culture also successfully asserted itself in the world through philosophy (Slavoj Žižek), music (composer Vinko Globokar, singer Marjana Lipovšek, ensembles Avseniki and Laibach, DJ Umek), visual art (Marjetica Potrč), theatre (Slovensko mladinsko gledališče), modern dance (En-Knap, Betontanc), new media (Marko Peljhan), film (which in Slovenia started with the still popular comedies of the Czech František Čap) and, last but not least, architecture: the central architect of his time Jože Plečnik (1872-1957) designed his main creations in Ljubljana and Prague. This is why the literary appearance in Prague will be supported by exhibitions, concerts, films, particularly those based on literary works, performances of the street theatre, and the poets will also read their poetry in the club accompanied by a DJ.
It can sometimes be heard that Slovenia is a state born from the spirit of poetry. This spirit, which knows neither of victory nor of defeat, in the words of the poet Srečko Kosovel (1904-1926), will visit the Prague fair in early May. Join in!
The presentation of Slovenia in Prague is being organised by the Center for Slovenian Literature (www.ljudmila.org/litcenter) with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia (www.kultura.gov.si) and sponsors. For additional information please contact: litcenter@mail.ljudmila.org.

11th International Book Fair

Prague exhibion Grunds

Central Exhibiton

    Slovenia

Theme

    Book for and about travels

DISCUSSION FORUM

    Slavonic literature in a global context
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