The Directorate of the Bookstan International Literature Festival is pleased to invite you to a press conference where the program of the eighth edition of the Bookstan Festival will be presented, which will be held this year from July 5 to 8. The press conference will be held in the Sarajevo bookstore Buybook (Radićeva 4) on Friday, June 30, at 11:00 a.m.
The Bookstan Festival was founded in 2016 by Buybook, a leading publishing house in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in collaboration with internationally acclaimed writer Aleksandar Hemon, who was the curator and host of the first festival edition and the author of the No East. No West. concept.
Over the past seven years, almost 400 domestic, regional and international authors have participated in Bookstan, including: Benjamin Moser, Geert Mak, Orhan Pamuk, Rabih Alameddine, Rawi Hage, Kamila Shamsie, Hanif Kureishi, Mona Eltahawi, John Freeman, Bora Ćosić, Kader Abdolah, Andrej Nikolaidis, Ece Temelkuran, Dubravka Ugrešić, Miljenko Jergović, Semezdin Mehmedinović, Bekim Sejranović, Ilija Trojanow, Faruk Šehić, Xiaolu Guo, Damir Karakaš, Nellja Veremej, Mathias Énard, Adania Shibli, Delphine Minoui and many others.
At the eighth Bookstan, the choice of authors who come to us again from all over the world was determined by the central theme of the festival, which this time is "Imaginary Balkans" .
On the eve of this year's Bookstan festival, the publishing house Buybook Sarajevo will publish the first Bosnian edition of the cult study Imaginary Balkans by Bulgarian historian Maria Todorova. We are particularly pleased to announce that at the festival's grand opening – on Wednesday, July 5th, starting at 6 p.m. – we will host our guest of honor, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and recipient of the Award for Outstanding Contribution to Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies – Maria Todorova.
In addition to Maria Todorova, this year we will also welcome the Irish author Colm Tóibín, who has been declared laureate for Irish fiction for 2022-2024. year by the Arts Council of Ireland, multiple literary award winner, who was shortlisted for the Booker International Prize three times. As part of the festive closing of the festival, Buybook's edition of Tóibín's novel about the life of Thomas Mann - The Wizard will be presented. The eighth Bookstan will also be attended by: American writer and Pulitzer Prize winner Benjamin Moser; president of the International PEN and winner of the literary awards of the EBRD and the Vaclav Havel Library Burhan Sönmez; multi-award-winning American writer whose novel The House on Mango Street sold more than seven million copies and was translated into more than 25 languages Sandra Cisneros; and one of the most important writers of crime fiction in Turkey, whose works have been translated into 35 languages, Ahmet Ümit.
"Gathering authors from almost 15 countries around the world, in 2023 Bookstan turns to the mythology of the Balkans, i.e. the Balkans as a literary motif and at the same time as a cultural context for the works of contemporary regional and international writers. Through 40 book promotions, authors, translators, historians and experts in the field of humanities will, in the four days of our program, consider topics such as the contemporary challenges of the Balkan identity and (self-)imposed inferiority complex in the Balkans, and this year the festival will place special emphasis on the status of Balkan authors and on the world literary scene. Burdened by the effects of the Balkan (literary) heritage, the eighth Bookstan asks the question: is the Balkans harmless or a dangerous imaginary? home?", says the executive director of the festival, Lamija Milišić.
BOOKSTAN WORKSHOPS
Since its inception, the Bookstan International Literature Festival has been organizing workshops for young literary critics. The upcoming Bookstan will host a workshop on the topic of Contemporary Literary and Cultural Criticism: "Dangerous Reading", from 2 to 8 July. The workshop will be led by Prof. Dr. Selma Raljević, a dual associate professor in Theory and History of Literature and Comparative Literature at the Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Humanities, University "Džemal Bijedić" in Mostar. The workshop will be attended by 15 students from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. In addition to Selma Raljević, students will have the opportunity to attend lectures by seven other lecturers: Benjamin Moser, Senka Marić, Faruk Šehić, Zoran Žmirić, Đurđica Čilić, Bjanka Alajbegović and Dunja Ilić.
"Today, literary and cultural criticism is largely in crisis, both due to its silencing and marginalization, and due to the lack of genuine and quality literary critics. Good literary criticism must be based on expert critical opinion about literature, on critical and self-reflective dialogue with its text and context, on the pursuit of objectivity, on honesty and truthfulness, and on not flattering or bowing to any authorities. This is precisely what makes or can make good literary criticism dangerous," this year's workshop leader Selma Raljević rightly believes.
YOUTH CORNER
In 2023, Bookstan is launching a new, special program, Mladi Kutak, dedicated to literature for children and young people of various genres, and is implemented in cooperation with the American Corner Sarajevo and the American Corner Brčko (under the name Bookstan District). Mladi Kutak draws attention to the audience of the younger generation in recognizing their reading needs, contemporary literary voices that children and young people recognize as authentic and contemporary. Promotions and discussions within the Mladi Kutak are dedicated to the issue of the status of literature for children and young people in BiH and globally today, and the processes of the emergence of various genres within this literature.
BOTH THERE AND HERE
We are especially looking forward to the arrival of Buybook's authors who no longer live in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but who were born there and are building their successful literary careers around the world. We are also pleased to announce new editions in Buybook's production, specially prepared for the premiere presentation at Bookstan.
We are pleased that, in the first days of July, under the roof of Bookstan, Sarajevo will be the meeting place of some of the most important writers of today, and we invite you once again to join us at the press conference on Friday, June 30, with thanks for the dedicated media coverage of the festival contents.
We would also like to thank the media sponsors: FTV, Oslobođenje, Portal Strane, Al Jazeera Balkans, Radio Sarajevo, Express, Žurnal, Start, Dunjalučar, HRT, Booksa and Kritika HDP, and the festival partners: Academy of Fine Arts, Creative Europe, American Corner Sarajevo, American Corner Brčko, Library-Library of Brčko District, Book Fair in Istria, Atelje Figure, Bajkologija, Moderna vremena, Historical Museum of BiH, and BH Telecom.
We hope to see you there.
Best regards!
Bookstan / Buybook team