September 30th, 2024, Skopje - the Festival for European Literature “BookStar” will mark the begining of its 10th, jubilee edition today, and will last until October 3rd.
The program of the festival includes about twenty events: talks with authors, book promotions, meetings with students, panel discussions, literary readings, creative workshops, podcasts, music concerts, an exhibition, a stand-up show, the awarding of the “Dragi” awards, as well as the second “Publishing Europe” fellowship convention.
The events will take place in the "Laboratory", as well as in other locations: the Faculty of Philology "Blaže Koneski", the City Library "Brakja Miladinovci" and Europe House - Skopje. Admission to all literary events is free.
The first day of the festival will start with a creative workshop with Ana Golješka-Djikova in the city library "Brakja Miladinovci". Then in "Laboratorium" there will be two podcasts hosted by Duško Krstevski, the guests being José Luís Peixoto from Portugal and Zdravka Evtimova from Bulgaria. The opening ceremony will take place at 20:00 in the "Laboratorium", and the opening speech will be given by the Macedonian writer Rumena Bužarovska. At the opening, there will be a talk on the topic "Literary study of trauma and perseverance" with the authors Paola Peretti and Miřenka Čechová. The evening will be rounded off with a DJ set by Ogipsilon/Sure Shotz.
The festival slogan, which every year creatively provokes engagement and reflection, is "Metamorphosis" and is inspired by the works of Franz Kafka. A special event "Reading and Translating Kafka" will be held in his honor.
- Transformations are one of the most seminal ways in which human existence is designed. Transformations are where logic steps off the path for the fantasy and no one complains about it. In the year that marks the centenary of Kafka's death and in which the festival celebrates its first anniversary with a zero at the end, we find inspiration in works that are powerful enough to turn the impossible into the possible. The works that transcend the environments from which they originate. These are works that are bigger than the moment and for which the literary world is sometimes too narrow. And these works are written by authors who live literature. And they are now coming to Skopje to experience THE METAMORPHOSIS! - say the organizers.
This year, for the first time, the "BookStar" X10 special prize is awarded for exceptional achievements in literature to Alessandro Barrico, the most famous Italian writer, one of Europe's favorite authors, an intellectual who has become a global sensation and a man whose name sounds like a rock star!
- We are talking about an author who conquers a new writing territory with each book, and since the end of the 1990s, interest in him has not subsided. Baricco has remained a voice that, even when he writes differently from his original novels, is again fresh and innovative. He is an eternal metamorphosis of imagination and its inexhaustible possibilities. Considering that his trips abroad have been reduced to a minimum for four or five years, the "BookStar" Festival this year has the honor of realizing an exclusive online participation of one of the greatest authors of today, an occasion for which we will soon publish the translation from his latest book, "Avel" - say from “Antolog”.
The second annual laureate is Jón Kalman Stefánson, who takes home the traditional BookStar 2024 award for the trilogy “Between Heaven and Hell”. Stefansson (1963) is the most important contemporary Icelandic writer and widely talked about European author, known for his original ability to combine poetry and prose, creating works that are deeply lyrical and emotional.
So far, he has published thirteen prose works, five poetry collections and five translations into Icelandic, including one work by Charles Bukowski.
Impressive author names from different European countries are part of the festival - Kristijan Novak (Croatia), Zdravka Evtimova (Bulgaria), José Luís Peixoto (Portugal), Igor Marojevć (Serbia), Paola Peretti (Italy), Faruk Šehić (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Miřenka Čechová (Czech Republic). The author in focus from Macedonia is Rumena Bužarovska, but forty Macedonian writers, university professors, critics, musicians and other representatives from the publishing and cultural sectors are participating in the program.
In addition to the writers, top representatives of the publishing sector from Europe will be part of the festival: Nadège Agullo (France) – executive director of the publishing house "Agullo" from Bordeaux; Tino Schlench (Austria/Germany) – curator for the literary program of "Cultural Summer" – Vienna; Giorgia Spadoni (Italy) - translator and external collaborator for the publishing house "Botega Erante" - Udine; Manol Peykov Manol Peykov (Bulgaria) - owner of the publishing house "Janet 45" - Plovdiv and the Sofia Literary Agency - Sofia, as well as the translator and university professor in Berlin, Benjamin Langerwho is also the winner of the "Dragi" international prize for the translation of the novel " Pirej" by Petre M. Andreevski from Macedonian to German.
Within the festival, the winner of the "Dragi" award for the best translation into the Macedonian language will be announced. The five finalists for 2024 are Anastasija Gjurčinova for the translation from Italian of “The Intimate Life“ by Niccolò Ammaniti; Gjoko Zdraveski for the translation from Croatian of “Three for Kartal” by Miljenko Jergović; Ekaterina Babamova for the translation from English of “Victory City” by Salman Rushdie; Elisaveta Popovska for the translation from French of “A Girl’s Story” by Annie Ernaux and Irena Jurčeva for the translation from English of “The Silmarillion” by J. R. R. Tolkien.
The visual identity is the authorship of Maja Plačkoska, who also produced the festival video.
"Bookstar" will upgrade its cooperation with all stakeholders to raise awareness about waste selection, as well as active participation of the audience in the selection process, and will also continue its mission as the first literary festival that offered a translation of part of the events of sign language. Among other things, books in Braille will be produced and donated this year, in order to support the transformation of our society into an inclusive one by personal example.
So far, the biggest European writers have participated in “Bookstar”: Slavenka Drakulić, Najat el Hachmi, Stefan Hertmans, Igor Štiks, Sjón, Miljenko Jergović, Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, Jela Krečič Žižek, Michal Viewegh, Slobodan Šnajder, Niccolo Amaniti, Svetlana Aleksievich, Saša Stanišić, Eugene Vodolazkin, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Jussi Adler Olsen, Hakan Nesser and many other authors from almost all European countries, as well as several dozen Macedonian writers.
In the period from September 30th to October 3rd, everyone has the right to experience the metamorphosis through meetings with the authors of "BookStar"!
The festival is held under the slogan "The Metamorphosis" and is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of North Macedonia, the literary network Traduki, EU with YOU, the Embassy of the Czech Republic and Republic of Italy, the Cultural and Information Center of the Republic of Bulgaria in Skopje, the Italian Institute of Culture in Belgrade, the Icelandic Literary Center and the "Camões" Language and Cooperation Institute. The media sponsor is the Macedonian Radio Television. The visual identity is the authorship of Maja Plačkoska, who also produced the festival video.
