PRESENTATION OF THE BOOKSTAR AWARD 2026 FOR THE BOOK FREE
Award citation: Ivana Trajanoska
“To Freedom and Beyond”: A Conversation with Author Lea Ypi
Moderator: Kalina Maleska
Lea Ypi comes to Skopje as the recipient of the BookStar Award 2026 for her book Free, a work that, through personal and collective history, explores one of the most important and complex questions of contemporary society: what does it truly mean to be free?
The award will be presented to her on 24 August at 19:00 at Laboratorium, at the pre-festival event marking the beginning of BookStar’s journey towards the main programme in September. Writer and university professor Ivana Trajanoska will speak about the book and the decision to name it the recipient of the BookStar Award.
The award ceremony will be followed by a conversation with Ypi, moderated by writer and professor Kalina Maleska who is also the translator of the book into Macedonian. The conversation will focus on her literary and philosophical understanding of freedom, the relationship between personal memory and major historical events, and the question of what remains of the idea of freedom when it is confronted with reality.
The conversation at the event will be in English.
