For the seventh consecutive year, the Forum of Slavic Cultures participated in the Pula Book Fair(y). The Slavic Garden program featured Armenian writer Narine Abgaryan and Antoni Libera from Poland.

Narine Abgaryan, who writes in Russian, spoke with Ivana Peruško, curator of the Slavic Garden program, about her novel Simon, which was published in Croatian translation this year.

“Narine Abgaryan has an extraordinary ability to describe the most cruel situations in life with deep understanding and compassion, but without pathos,” said Peruško, pointing out that simplicity, universality, and empathy are key characteristics of the literary work of this author, whose books have been translated into 41 languages.

As part of the Ljubljana Reads and Disquiets program sections, FSK – with the support of the Slovenian Book Agency – participated in the presentation of Slovenian writer Goran Vojnović, who is well known to the Pula audience. This time, in discussion with Aljoša Pužar, the conversation turned to his collection of essays Zbiralec strahov (The Collector of Fears), which has just been published in Croatian translation. The author explained that the book was conceived as a collection of columns and essays, but it has many autobiographical elements and is somewhat closer to a novel. Vojnović’s work is based on his own experiences – the places and neighborhoods where he grew up – and the book functions as a meta-novel. The host and author praised the excellent Croatian translation by Jagna Pogačnik.

The second guest of the Slavic Garden was Polish writer, translator, theater director, and renowned expert and translator of Samuel Beckett, Antoni Libera. The conversation was dedicated to the Croatian translation of his novel Madame. The translator of the novel, Dalibor Blažina, emphasized that the work belongs to the highest literary canon, is extremely popular in Poland, has sold almost 200,000 copies, has been reprinted five times, and has been translated into 25 languages.