TRADUKI – New Literature from Southeast Europe!
The title of the 2025 TRADUKI programme at the Leipzig Book Fair is inspired by North Macedonian author Lidija Dimkovska. In her poem, ‘The Country That Is Falling Apart’, she lists the things that are usually ‘grabbed’ in a hurry when people are forced to leave their homes – and oftentimes their homeland: their language, their passport (the most precious part of a person, according to Brecht) and two or three photos. Even if, or precisely because, people today have thousands of digital images saved on their mobile phones. Ultimately, these snaps are more fragile and fleeting than the old, scratched photos in grandfather’s wallet.
This year’s TRADUKI programme is focussing on the topic of flight – but also on arrivals and the act of staying. We will discuss the healing of survivors, the silent, often fraught gap between people and generations, and the abysmal gulf between war crimes and their victims. Jeanette Blank, Vedran Džihić, Sergei Lebedev, Nadija Rebronja, Faruk Šehić and Moni Stănilă are some of the authors who use literature to try to come to terms with war and its consequences, perhaps even to overcome them and regain stability in everyday life. Jehona Kicaj, Meral Kureyshi and Emanuil A. Vidinski explore the broad topic of migration, guest workers and growing up in a new language. Mircea Cărtărescu, Clemens Meyer and Edo Popović take us into epochal, multi-layered times and worlds that are also characterised by war, violence and exoduses. And there is much much more in the TRADUKI programme: Asja Bakić, Zdravka Evtimova, Livia Ștefan and Tanja Stupar Trifunović describe female desire, love and destinies in rural areas, pulsating cities and digital futuristic worlds, and after 5 years of ‘Literarischer Nerd “erliest” Südosteuropa’ on Instagram, Florian Valerius and Hana Stojić will be holding court and discussing literature at the Leipzig Book Fair.
TRADUKI also gives space to political debates. We will dedicate on panel to the controversial topic of lithium from Serbia (with Florian Bieber, Bojana Novaković and Stefan Rössel). Meanwhile, Lejla Kusturica, Senad Pećanin and Taina Tervonen will discuss the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina 30 years after Dayton.
The legendary Balkannacht at the UT Connewitz has become an integral part of the Leipzig Book Fair. Bulgarian musician Ivo Dimchev will put the icing on the cake of this year’s edition with his showy yet sensitive performance. The motif of the photo also reverberates in one of his songs, where he addresses his favourite photographer: ‘You make me look prettier, you make me look so fit.’
Perhaps the best photographer is still language, and therefore literature, which knows how to capture the world and its people in all their contradictions and diversity with the utmost precision.
Let’s see, perhaps you will end up leaving the TRADUKI Kafana with two or three photos!
Your TRADUKI Team
Angelika Salvisberg, Barbara Anderlič, Marija Karaklajić, Andrej Lovšin, Radmila Radovanović, Anna Schlossbauer