“BOOKSTAR” 2025 FESTIVAL OPENING
“The Writer Is Speaking” - Kalina Maleska: “Literature in the Context of Changе”
Since 2022, the beginning of the festival has been marked by the powerful thoughts and words of renowned Macedonian writers. For that purpose, each of them prepares a short, appropriate text that sheds a different light on their own work, but also sets a vertical of the literary and social context in the times we live in, and in collusion with the festival theme. Because these festivals exist to make the voices of writers heard. The author who will address the Skopje audience this year is Kalina Maleska, who is not only the current winner of the "Novel of the Year" award of the "Slavko Janevski" Foundation, but also often engages in public debates on topics that concern us all.
Award Ceremony: BOOKSTAR 2025 Award
Blaže Minevski – “A Tail in the Mouth”
Presentation of the book: Vesna Mojsova-Čepiševska
Address by the laureate: Blaže Minevski
The award for the most topical book between the two festival editions is awarded to Blaže Minevski for the collection of short stories “A Tail in the Mouth” In the book, as in a magic performance, tradition and modernity, humor and bitterness, reality and fantasy, history and personal-intertwine. The stories function as a distillation of the centuries-old oral Macedonian narrative tradition, representing a wealth of styles and approaches - from reportage and feuilleton to fascinating and imaginary fiction. Some of the stories have already been published as winners of the highest possible short story awards and have gained outstanding critical reactions from the domestic and international public. Minevski's virtuoso play with narration, originality in the treatment of historical themes, chameleon-like changes in style and focalizer beyond recognition, as well as the ability to revive different layers of the visible and invisible, are particularly noticeable. With the book “A Tail in the Mouth”Minevski not only confirms his narrative voice as a leading one in Macedonian literature but also enriches contemporary prose, creating a work that can be transferred beyond the local context, opening domestic literature to broader cultural horizons.
