The seventh Bookstan International Literature Festival was held from July 6th to 9th in the inner garden of the Buybook bookstore on Radićeva Street, this year under the title "State of Siege" .
A total of 32 programs were held over four days – each festival day began with a presentation at 11 a.m. and ended at 10 p.m. The festival was opened by Turkish writer Defne Suman, who presented her novel “The Heat of Summer” in conversation with translator Alena Ćatović, and closed by French writer Mathias Enard, who presented his novel “Tell Them About Battles, Kings, and Elephants” in conversation with literary critic Margot Dijkgraf.
During these four days, the audience had the opportunity to hear important names such as Eva Ensler, Adanija Shibli, Katharine Volckmer, Reza Amirkhani, as well as domestic and regional authors such as Slađana Nina Perković, Ivana Bodrožić, Radmila Petrović, Magdalena Blažević, Igor Stanojoski, Zvonko Karanović and others. Lana Bastašić, Selvedin Avdić, Marko Pogačar and Almin Kaplan presented to the audience for the first time the books published as part of the Semezdin Mehmedinović Diary edition, namely the books “Crveni kofer”, “Mali smakovi”, “Adolfove uši” and “Kućni ljudi”.
During the festival, four round tables were held with the theme "State of Siege", which were attended by well-known names such as Bora Kontić, Senad Pećanin, Suada Kapić, Semezdin Mehmedinović, Delphine Minoui, John Freeman, Amra Abadžić, Paul Lowe, Kenneth Morrison, Srđan Srdić and others.
The audience was presented with the “100 in 10” edition created as part of the Creative Europe project “From One Pandemic to Another: 100 Years of European Literature in 10 Books”. Translators Tea Mijan, Tamina Šop, Refik Ličina and Dragoslav Dedović spoke about translation work, the challenges translators face, and what participating in this project meant to them.
Two authors addressed the audience online – from Ukraine, a young writer Andriy Lyubka, in a conversation with editor Faruk Šehić, presented his collection of stories "Room for Sorrow", and Mustafa Akyol, who, together with translator Mirnes Kovač, presented the book "Reopening Muslim Minds".
The audience had the opportunity to watch the film “Daraya: A Library Under the Bombs”, and attend the promotion of the book “Bosnian War Poster” by Daoud Sarhandi Williams, which brought together posters created during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
As part of the In Memoriam program, we remembered two deceased writers – Zilhad Ključanin and Stevan Tontić.
A workshop for young literary critics was organized, this year led by literary critic and editor Jagna Pogačnik. The workshop once again brought together twenty young people and was held under the title “Literary Criticism – Between Text and (Con)Text”. At the closing ceremony of the festival, the best participants of the workshop were awarded prizes.