Events

TRADUKI organises and supports events in all its partner countries to promote authors, translators and supported books.

Leipzig, Vienna, Berlin

TRADUKI is a vital part of the Leipzig Book Fair and has been present at the fair since 2009. In the years 2020-2022, TRADUKI was the Region in Focus at the Leipzig Book Fair with its project Common Ground. 2017 saw the first edition of the Balkan Film Week take place at the UT Connewitz. Since then, films from Southeast Europe serve as an amuse-gueule for the literary events at the fair. Since 2019, TRADUKI kicks off September and the late summer season with Die guten Tage at the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin on lake Wannsee and in November TRADUKI presents its programme to the Austrian public at the Buch Wien.

And elsewhere?

TRADUKI supports festivals, readings and literary events in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein and Southeast Europe and has been present at several book fairs, be it in Belgrade, Sofia or Bucharest. To keep abreast with all the events we support check out our Latest News page or follow us on social media.

Latest News

The Leipzig Book Fair 2024 took place from 21-24 March. TRADUKI prepared fascinating talks with authors and experts: on different stages at the book fair and at the UT Connewitz. Barbi Marković won the Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair for Minihorror. Bravo! On Saturday evening she was part of our Balkannacht. The Balkan Film Week took place as usual in the weeks leading up to the book fair.

Images: Alexandra Ivanciu

Poetics of Nonbelonging

For this year’s title of the TRADUKI programme at the Leipzig Book Fair 2024, we were inspired by the North Macedonian poet Nikola Madjirov. His poetic-philosophical essay (tr. Alexander Sitzmann, published in Sinn und Form) deals with “nonbelonging”, a feeling that often extends far beyond writing and into ‘real’ life. “Nonbelonging” is not something specific to Southeast European authors either; rather, the vast majority of people have a similar experience: it can be painful when you keep your distance from your “own” – whoever they may be and whatever that may exactly mean – or when a distance creeps into a relationship or a closeness never existed in the first place.

But not only pain, but also a creative force can be unleashed by this very “lack of belonging”: “I think this is the silent curse of writers: they betray their belonging at the very moment when they begin to feel they belong,” Madjirov writes in his essay. A curse? Possibly; but for us readers, it is rather a blessing when the North Macedonian poet says of himself: “I feel at home in the cave of nonbelonging” as this proves to be a “literary” productive state of being – the author as cave dweller! It is doubtful whether all the authors in this year’s TRADUKI programme share this self-perception, but we would like to ask about it in conversations and discussions. However, the invited authors are likely to agree with Madjirov on one thing: “The stories of forgotten objects are more important than the letters and orders signed by military leaders”.

Newcomers and some Leipzig regulars will be guests on the stage of our popular TRADUKI Kafana this year. Many of them will be presenting new German translations, some supported by TRADUKI. The authors will include Stefan Çapaliku, who explores the impossibility of love in the occupied Tirana of the 1940s, and Antonela Marušić, who outlines the realities of lesbian life and social inequalities on the Adriatic coast. Rene Karabash describes the lives of ‘traditional’ Albanian sworn virgins and alongside Bojan Savić Ostojić we will stroll through Belgrade’s flea markets and rescue books that have fallen out of time. Tatiana Țîbuleac takes us back to Moldova in the 80s and 90s, Nataša Krambergers poses the question of how we treat the environment and nature, and Aleksandar Hemon follows the trail of love between a Jew and a Muslim in the trenches of the First World War. With Zoltán Danyi and László Végel, we will present two Serbian authors from Vojvodina who write in Hungarian. Poetry is not to be missed: we present the award-winning Bulgarian poet Yordanka Beleva, and Nikola Madjirov will introduce us to Ivana Jovanovska, a young poet from North Macedonia.

At Café Europa, the political stage of the Leipzig Book Fair, we are organising two thematic panels this year: one discusses the Slovenian minority in fascist Italy, the other the situation and significance of the feminist discourse in Southeast Europe. And then, of course, there is the ‘one and only’ Balkan Night in the legendary UT Connewitz cinema on Saturday evening. Here – alongside other authors – Barbi Marković will delight us with her “Minihorror”. The evening shenanigans will be moderated by Vivian Perkovic and Amir Kamber to the music of the charismatic Croatian singer Sara Renar.

Drop by for a coffee at the TRADUKI Kafana (Hall 4 / D 403) and join us on our forays through the multifaceted poetics of nonbelonging. You will see how right the poet-philosopher Nikola Madjirov is when he writes: “Written words are like fish thrown into the well of a new reality – their wriggling keeps the water clean!”

Your TRADUKI team

Full Programme

The Leipzig Book Fair 2023 took place from 27-30 April. TRADUKI prepared fascinating talks with authors and experts in Leipzig: on different stages at the book fair, at the UT Connewitz and at Suedbrause – bei Freunden. Our famous Balkan Film Week took place as usual in the weeks leading up to the book fair.

Between the Lines
In Between Times

Cue: TRADUKI – Southeast Europe Takes the Stage! At this year’s Leipzig Book Fair, TRADUKI will be presenting authors from Southeast Europe in almost 20 events at the traditional “Café Europa” and, for the first time, at the TRADUKI Kafana. Under the title “Between the Lines – In Between Times”, our programme is dedicated to the hidden sides and moments of life, to the ambiguity of our experiences and perspectives, and the diversity of different ways of life. It is vital to look closer and strike up open dialogues. Authors and their moderating hosts will be looking closer at the breaks, leaps and turns in the lifelines of people and countries. Childhood memories will get reinterpreted anew and space will be made for the past in the personal and political future. The TRADUKI Programme 2023 in Leipzig wants to make the spaces “in between” more visible and tangible, because it is precisely here that decisive events often take place.

For us, the following question is obvious: Is Southeast Europe perhaps itself such an “in-between”? Not yet here – but neither there? Is it waiting in the antechamber of Europe? One gets the urge to cry out loud: Come on then, when will this (his)story finally move ahead and move along?!

Among our authors are last year’s Ingeborg Bachmann Prize winner Ana Marwan, who writes in Slovenian and German, the Romanian author and winner of the 2015 Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding, Mircea Cărtărescu, the Bosnian Lana Bastašić, who is currently a DAAD Berlin Artists-in-Residence Programme Fellow, and the Slovenian poet Anja Zag Golob. In addition, TRADUKI will also present numerous new literary voices and discoveries of 2023.

But TRADUKI is no longer just literature, it is also film and music. The carefully curated film programme of the Balkan Film Week focuses on the act of “disappearance” and is in line with this year’s TRADUKI motto. The eight films deal with immigration and emigration, with life between different worlds, with the slow crossing over and growing into a new world. How can this state of being – in the here and the there and the in-between – succeed, without the individual losing themselves or even disappearing? In the Slavic languages, verbs have a perfect and an imperfect form with which one can express the completion or non-completion of an event. Izginiti is not the same as izginjati. Both can be translated into German with the word to disappear, but izginiti means: something has disappeared, is no longer there. Izginjati, on the other hand, represents a slow, steady, sometimes all the more painful act of vanishing: without a clear break and clear boundaries, the past is always snapping at the heels of the present.

For now, stay on TRADUKI’s heels and visit us in Hall 4 / D407, at Café Suedbrause – bei Freunden and at the UT Connewitz cinema, where – after an eventful day at the fair – we invite you to join us on Saturday evening for the legendary Balkannacht: Literature from the countries of the Western Balkans and music by Novi Sad-born and Vienna-based composer and violist Jelena Popržan will play us out and into the night.

In 2023, TRADUKI cooperates in many ways with this year’s Guest of Honour, Austria. The country presents itself under the title “meaoiswiamia” (more than just us), a sentiment that we happily join. And TRADUKI partner Slovenia, the Guest of Honour at the upcoming Frankfurt Book Fair in autumn is also being given its due in this programme.

Your TRADUKI Team: Angelika, Barbara, Ljubica, Andrej, Marija, Radmila

View Programme

In 2022, Common Ground – Literature from Southeast Europe was for the third and final time the Region in Focus at the Leipzig Book Fair. Unfortunately, and to our great dismay, the Leipzig Book Fair 2022 was cancelled. But, nevertheless, our programme featuring books, authors, music and films was presented in a slightly altered fashion in Leipzig under the title “US AND THEM”. The events took place from 17 to 20 March 2022. In addition, fascinating talks with authors took place online.

US AND THEM

COMMON GROUND. Literature from Southeast Europe is in its third year. In 2020 and 2021 we covered topics, which moved authors personally. We questioned how society and politics deal with the challenges of the past, present, and future, and showed what sort of realities authors give a literary voice to.

This year’s Common Ground programme is titled: US AND THEM.

In our third year as the Region in Focus at the Leipzig Book Fair, we raise the question of differences an things in common, of elements that bind us together and cut us off from another, of us, ourselves, and the other. Is the Southeast of Europe really that different from our surroundings, from what is familiar to us? What are imagined, and what, real distances? How big are the differences between us and them, between the Here and the There? Is a differentiation of the world into “East” and “West” still (or again!) topical?

There is nothing wrong with wanting to put order, structure, outlines and boundaries into the chaos that is one’s existence. This is how one’s own identity takes shape and is moulded, this is how one can reappraise and reassess it. Problems arise, when these assessments and one’s own existence is valued higher and as the proper way in respect to the lives of others – when we take on a position of superiority towards the other. And it does not matter from what direction we look at them.

US AND THEM brings together authors in whose books the characters are adamant about going their own path in life. They are filled with stories in which children refuse to take on their prescribed roles and question assumed designations and stances. We present books about people, who have to suffer lasting consequences because of decisions taken by shortsighted people in power. But these are also books about dreams, hopes, and fears – familiar to each and every one who tries to master life.

We invite you to listen to the voices from Southeast Europe. So „THEM“ may become a part of „US“ – and vice versa.

View Programme

„Common Ground – Literature from Southeast Europe“ goes digital! Our programme in 2021 was held as part of Leipzig liest extra – a reading festival organised by the Leipzig Book Fair. The videos premiered between 27 and 30 May.

1991 saw the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The collapse formed an entire generation of writers – forever marked by what they lived through. Exactly 30 years after the breakup, Common Ground put the Archipelago Yugoslavia – From 1991 to Today centre stage, presenting new books, background stories, and unexpected twists of fate. In addition, another important event was in focus: 2021 also marked the 30th anniversary of the end of the Hoxha regime in Albania.

Archipelago Yugoslavia

What to make of the end of the world? How does one keep on living after the apocalypse? Does time really heal all wounds? What to do with one’s own (and others’) nostalgia? And where do the countries of the former Yugoslavia find themselves today? Are these post-Yugoslav societies ready to face their past? And did not just Yugoslavia vanish from the face of the Earth but also the idea of Yugoslavism itself? Where the foundations of this state plain bad? Or did it really only need one wrong man at the top to take down the whole crumbling house? (What) can Europe learn from Yugoslavia’s mistakes?

Yugoslavia no longer exists. Since 30 years. The multinational state was dilapidated and in dire need of repair, but chances to democratically reform it were missed. Crimes, flight, expulsion, concentration camps and genocide were the consequence.

However, the countries that were once joined in brotherly union – only to separate in violence, share a cultural shared space. It is this shared space that the Traduki network – 360 months after the end of Yugoslavia – dedicates its Archipelago Yugoslavia programme to. Many of the erstwhile warring and sparring ex-Yugoslav countries work today side by side together with Traduki. They meet as equal partners and have accepted the challenge of the “Common Ground”. This is not something that should be taken for granted.

Common Ground goes digital: Because of the pandemic our programme must find its own wee space on the world wide web, our booth at the Leipzig Book Fair remaining yet another year unoccupied. But this is no obstacle for us. Together with our partner, the Leipzig Book Fair, and a slew of authors and participants from Southeast Europe, we have created our own digital world where to present our diverse, ambitious, and even controversial programme. Traduki already offers a myriad of inviting digital series online. Now, with Common Ground 2021, we dive even deeper into the world of hashtags and followers.

The Archipelago Yugoslavia programme is diverse and manifold. First, there are the 15 essays, penned by Southeast European writers from different generations and walks of life, where they tell their very own personal stories of the last 10950 days. Some of them witnessed the breakup of Yugoslavia as children, others as soldiers, others as refugees, yet others as émigrés. We are honoured that Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published six of these essays, all of them will be made available to read here in the coming weeks.

In addition to these essays, 10 digital events are the main focus of our programme, including talks on current events that impact Southeast Europe as well as Europe at large: Memories, assessments, but also a look into the future and the continued exploration of this geographical and cultural space in its  European context.

Presentations of new releases from Southeast Europe in German translation also form part of our programme, especially books by the younger generation. But, alas, not everything that would be interesting for the German-speaking audience is already available in translation, which is why we also have presentations on books that have yet to find their place on the German book market.

The year 1991 did not just bring about changes in the southeast corner of Europe. 262800 hours have also passed since the Soviet Union took its final bow and the communist Enver regime in Albania folded. These key events have also found their way into our programme.

The Balkan Film Week is by now an integral part of our Leipzig programme and so we will present a well-curated film selection that opens up new views on Southeast Europe – for our audience in Leipzig as well as online.

Come with us to the Archipelago Yugoslavia, ponder over the past 1.576.800 minutes, but also dare to look into the future with us. It will hopefully make certain things imaginable again, things that seemed utterly impossible these last 946.080.000 seconds.

View Programme

The partners of the TRADUKI network are sorry that the Leipzig Book Fair 2020 was cancelled. As the Region in Focus at the Leipzig Book Fair, we would have loved to kick off our project “Common Ground. Literature from Southeast Europe” and present the region’s authors, literature, and culture.

Starting on 23 April 2020, World Book Day, “Common Ground” presented guests from its programme “Origin and Belonging” through its online “Books for Breakfast” series, bringing authors and translators directly into your home. With them in tow: tons of reading material from Southeast Europe, personal favourites, and lasting reading experiences.  

Origin and Belonging

Hana Stojić, Curator of the Common Ground Programme, invites you to discover a new side of Southeast Europe, a region that is oftentimes portrayed through the prism of negative and fear-inducing words and images and is rarely afforded the privilege to show its softer, more poetic side.

In 1980, already living in exile in Paris, Danilo Kiš lamented and fought in his essay, Homo Poeticus, Regardless, against the role many writers from this part of the world are pushed into – that of a mere homo politicus. He bristled at the thought of being condemned to a certain, narrow kind of literary expression and for him and his kin to be denied the freedom to praise the joy and wonder of a simple sunset or lose themselves in hazy reveries of love and passion.

But there is literature, and with it the opportunity to discover Southeast Europe in a new, more open, compassionate way. It is also a time for the region itself to reflect on what binds it together – regardless of all differences – and the indisputable common ground it shares, over borders and barriers, with the German-speaking world and beyond.

This year’s programme is an invitation to look closer. To discover. To connect.

We hope you will accept.

Welcome to our Common Ground.

View Programme

TRADUKI is an important part of the Leipzig Book Fair, participating in it since 2009. Over the course of the years, TRADUKI organised bigger and more events at the fair and also in Leipzig’s old town. Participants of the 2019 programme included Marko Dinić, Kapka Kassabova, Mojca Kumerdej, Ana Schnabl,  Tijan Sila and musician Andrra.

2019 Programme

Balkan Film Week 2024

The already sixth Balkan Film Week took place from 4 to 7 March at the UT Connewitz. The Balkan Film Week is a cinematic introduction to the diverse literary programme at the Leipzig Book Fair. Spread over four days, presented nine films on the topic of resilience, including Between Revolutions, Blaga’s Lessons and Safe Place. As in previous years, the programme was curated by Marija Katalinić.

All film screenings were at the UT Connewitz. You can watch the online Q&A with Romanian director Vlad Petri on TRADUKI’s YouTube channel.

 

Balkan (film) between resistance and resilience

Resilience is often used in connection to two notions, power and material. The action implies when a force is exercised or applied against another matter, without being able to permanently change its substance. One of its definitions offered by Cambridge dictionary states resilience as ‘’the ability of a substance to return to its usual shape after being bent, stretched, or pressed.’’

Leading from here, I propose thinking about resilience in relation to corporality and its capacity to sustain under difficult environments and conditions. Corpus here directly translates to human bodies and their capacity to bend, and move, but regain their composure. The category of vulnerability that ascribes the body’s materiality is a focus of investigation in the volume ‘’Vulnerability in Resistance’’, edited by Judith Butler, Zeynep Gambetti, and Leticia Sabsay. In the book, the authors investigate ways of mobilizing personal and collective urgencies to reframe the vulnerable in relation to being resistant. As Sarah Bracke in the volume writes that “resilience, in short, is a powerful idea whose deployment spans the macro-level of ecological and economic systems to the micro level of selves, and the complex circuits of power that connect and constitute these different levels of social reality”[1]. Although the author discusses resilience as a mobilizing neoliberal mechanism in relation to social categories, such as gender, the resilience is positioned in relation to resistance. Unlike resilience, where matter jumps back into shape after a pressured influence, resistance implies, as the Cambridge dictionary suggests, ‘’the act of fighting against something that is attacking you, or refusing to accept something’’ or ‘’a force that acts to stop the progress of something or make it slower’’ or ‘’a situation in which people or organizations fight against something or refuse to accept or be changed by something’’. Therefore, to resist is an act to counter, while resilience signifies endurance.

Both categories, resistance and resilience, assist in thinking about the Balkan films and their choice to focus on the ways the bodies have been resisting under the historical socio-political rhythm and its leftover consequences. The characters that mirror the region’s inhabitants, although resilient do not all rebound from their initial states, minds nor bodies. Some get locked in the different form, shifted, and bent. Continuing from Bracke: ‘’In precarious times, resilience is the new security[2].’’ For the Balkans, resilience is a virtue one is born into. When in this year’s film ‘’Museum of the Revolution’’ the main protagonist expresses her desire to become a butterfly by saying “If I need to walk, I fly instead. Sometimes I walk, sometimes I fly”, she brings on a powerful way of dealing with her weighty life. Metaphorically, she aspires to resist the conditions she bears by transforming herself and the women that surround her.

This year, Balkan Film Week honours all alive that serve as monuments to resilience in their everyday as well as joint historical battles, but also those who passed away. The resilience that Balkan inhabitants embody historically, is opposite from generalisation or exoticism that has been stamped on its collective body. This year’s films talk about resilience, and also resistance, in form of revolutions, governmental but also personal, and the entwining spaces between these two scopes: affecting, twisting and conditioning. In this respect, the festival opens with Srđan Keča and Vlad Petri’s films that offer a lens between these two categories. The second day of the festival opens with topics surrounding heritage and its resilient persistence that holds its shape through time. How do we work with tradition? Is loyalty to tradition inadequate, can it be resisted or reformatted, and if so, how can the conditions be negotiated? The tradition cannot, or maybe even should not, be destroyed. However, how this conversation is negotiated is shown through examples provided by the directors Smirna Kulenović, Vincent Moon and Fatime Kosumi, as well as Marija Zidar. The third day of the festival brings the notion of resilience back to the human body, and to the experience of pain, but also in connection to community in general, as well as to family in detail. Understanding the human connection as one of the most resilient notions, we turn to the awarded stories by Marko Šantić and Juraj Lerotić. The final day of the festival adds a note of humour to the matter, and to the weighty social conditions under which the characters of the films ‘’Secret Ingredient’’ and ‘’Blaga’s Lessons’’ resist, i.e. operate under. In these films, the directors Gjorce Stavreski and Stephan Komandarev display ways in which the movies’ protagonists, even as they are affected by their political and social state of affairs, manage to move around, and against the obstacles.

We humans have an insatiable desire to live and sustain. The movements that human bodies make, strive to express a range of emotions. Creativity, the force through which the human condition resists, expands and collects all on their journey. Whether by transforming into butterflies, raising fists in the air, hurting their bodies to feel, being heard through a song, or by making films, the power to express resists and transforms as we move through different ebbs of life.

[1] Bracke, Sarah. ‘’Bouncing Back. Vulnerability and Resistance in Times of Resilience.’’ Vulnerability in Resistance, edited by Judith Butler, Zeynep Gambetti, and Leticia Sabsay. Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2016, p.52.

[2] Bracke, Sarah, ‘’Bouncing Back. Vulnerability and Resistance in Times of Resilience’’ in Vulnerability in Resistance. Edited by Judith Butler, Zeynep Gambetti, and Leticia Sabsay. Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2016, p.57.

Full Programme

Balkan Film Week 2023

The already fifth Balkan Film Week took place from 11 to 14 April at the UT Connewitz. In 2023, TRADUKI partner Austria was guest of honour at the Leipzig Book Fair and so the film programme also had a light Austrian twist to it. We showed eight films, including Želimir Žilnik’s „Das schönste Land der Welt“. The director was present at the screening, which was followed by a lively Q&A.

Introduction #5

Marija Katalinić

Emigration and immigration imply the gestures of relocation. These acts of movement are about personal politics and the reasons that (literally and symbolically) move us; pains, desires, aspirations, and hopes that manage to transform one ordinary life into a new one. To move is never a simple act. Change implies leaving people and matters behind and shedding one’s familiarity for what is to come. Emigration and immigration require courage to confront what is unknown, for all that is new is saturated with connotations of unsettledness. Conditions of survival mark the histories that these movements create. Bodies that move across borders bear in them the potential to create and shape new (hi)stories by layering old and new aspects of identity, belonging, and culture. However, newly imagined realities that are on the move are as fragile as the bodies that articulate these hopes. Their emerging corporeality, the influx of agencies into spaces from which they were previously absent, often provoke feelings of scarcity and fear.

Nevertheless, it is worth remembering that migrations are a historical constant that persists even in the face of hard obstacles such as wires, rivers, and mountains, or soft ones, such as bureaucracy, money, and language. One of those symbolical barriers is the process of forgetting. This seems to be a political methodology for a certain type of politicized history: forgetting about all the previous psycho-geographies by those who searched for a better life for themselves and their families. How and why does one become included, or expelled, within a society, a group, or a state? Maybe we should remind ourselves of ‘the ethics of hospitality’ that J. Derrida articulated in his essay “Cosmopolitanism[1]”. Culture is borrowed, edited, appropriated, and adjusted by and to the needs of those who shape and live it. Raymond Williams famously described culture as one of the more complex words to define, precisely because of the inherited tension between those who think they own culture. Therefore, processes of migration are a testament to the layers that create culture, while at the same time generating contention in the public discourse. As such, emigration and immigration need to be welcomed as they stand for the history of human perseverance.

Previously, Balkan Film Week presented films that discussed questions of diversity, belonging, borders, origins, family, and memory. Emigration and immigration feed into these narratives as the region’s histories have been marked for centuries by movements between borders; it is an inherent part of its cultural code. This year´s Balkan Film Week programme welcomes Austria into its collective fold: as its neighbour, friend, and partaker of its shared history. The gaze is still set on the Southeastern space, while the perspective remains transnational. The selected films aim to depict methodologies used to ‘cross over’ borders; monetary endeavours (‘Cash & Marry’), failed attempts to become accepted (‘Exile’, ‘The Most Beautiful Country in the World’), lost familiar ordinaries (‘Acasă, My Home’), deliberate collective acts of forgetting (‘Verschwinden/Izginjanje’), or the moving forces that seek to recollect and uphold the memories of those who migrated before us (´The Paper Bridge´). ‘Bosnian Broadway’ shows how the possibility for emigration is being formed in the first place, and how its imagined reality can become almost tangible, yet remain elusive. On the other hand, there are those who do manage to leave, yet keep on returning to (for) those who remained behind. Led by love, these travellers move between time and place, striving to gather that and those who hold them safe in their own personal space, such as the film ´Dida´ showcases.

The question of migration is the question of responsibility towards one’s own life while acknowledging the historical narrative that created the precarious conditions of survival in the first place. Ultimately, the politics of migration stem from the questions of power and inequality. They remind us of the past, and of humanity’s ability to survive; they evoke what strives to be forgotten. When Derrida suggests we ‘transform and reform the modalities of membership[2]’, he asks us to re-examine the privileged conditions of those who do not need to move. In this year’s Balkan Film Week, we will encounter heroes attempting to improve their circumstances, walking towards unknown terrains, yet guided by faith in that what is to come.

[1] Derrida, Jacques, “On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness”, Routledge, London and New York, 2005.

[2] Derrida, Jacques, “On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness”, Routledge, London and New York, 2005; p. 4.

Full Programme

Balkan Film Week 2022

In 2022, the Balkan Film Week showcased seven films over the course of three days, from 27 February to 1 March. All film screenings took place at the UT Connewitz and were also available for streaming online.

Introduction #4

Marija Katalinić

Last year´s Balkan Film Week program angled itself towards the notion of borders and suggested we think about the ways in which they separate and/or distinguish identities, spaces, and bodies in a historical sense. The recent resurgence of violence in the context of border control also raises several interrelated questions regarding subjectivities and its convolutedness that implies deviation, manipulation, and fragmentation. Based on these implications, the symptom of “otherness” (firmly grounded in critical theory) can be historically traced to designate those “at odds with others”. Categories of age, sex, gender, as well as personal and public spaces describe and/or mark subjectivities, implying possessions of different and diverging experiences in them and us.

The categories between themselves can seem divergent and different, yet their binary nature precisely includes the relation of one towards the other. The question of how different identities coexist and how do they come together in conversation, is the theme of this year’s Balkan Film Week. The suggested categories do not necessarily insinuate opposition or oppression, but they are measured against each other, thus interdependent of those opposed. In comparing or mirroring (identities) there is also a possibility to establish difference through quantifying a lack of something or a profusion. In this respect, the relation between our presumed subjectivity and those “outside” of us, can be seen as complimentary and diverse in the sense that its understanding suggests learning and enjoyment in that diversity.

The void between different subjectivities is often filled with content of certain political nature. In striving to erase the premise used in the public discourse where “them and us” spells out “them or us”, this year’s program observes how these different subjectivities coexist in contemporary Southeast Europe. The selected films approach topics of dichotomies between identities and the political in-between those two, as potentially socially constructed and thus not a pregiven condition in constructing difference and “otherness”.

The insinuated fronting starts early on in coming of age (Sestre, Pa Vend) and surrounds us in our social and cultural reality through questions of binary normativity and sexuality (Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn), but also in times of precariousness (Frida, Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker), survival and contested geographies (Landscape of Resistance) and the privilege of migration (The Wire).

The ongoing events still yield uncertainty, loss, and change, and in these times particularly we strive to remind ourselves, and acknowledge, that “them is us” as much as “us is them”.

Full Programme

Balkan Film Week 2021

The overall Leipzig theme was Archipelago Yugoslavia – From 1991 to Today and also the six films we showed at the 3 Balkan Film Week dealt with the breakup of Yugoslavia 30 years ago. The 2021 edition took place exclusively online.

Introduction #3

Marija Katalinić

Subjectivity is a sticky[1] matter. It seems obvious and intrinsically ours, yet it is a product of complex negotiation between kinship, state governance and personal experiences. Subjectivity ties itself to the notion of an identity and hence, represents who we are to ourselves, how we present and are perceived by others. The body itself is often seen as a space that delineates the individual and the outside world; a physical border between the private and the public sphere. Judith Butler defines the boundary “as a function of the relation, a brokering of difference, a negotiation in which I am bound to you in my separateness.[2]” Borders therefore seem to suggest both differentiation and a relation at the same time. These bordering surfaces protect, break apart, distinct, contrapose, are loose or tight. Borders can be in a form of houses (In Between), plates (Quit Staring at My Plate), bridges (For Those Who Can Tell No Tales), counters (Erased) and landscapes (Homelands).

Common ground: Archipelago Yugoslavia, thus reflects and narrates the story of borders, shared histories, struggling presents and negotiated futures. An archipelago landscape points to a cluster of solitudes (a multitude), sense of power, history and time passed, but also firmness and immobility. Thirty years has passed since the war in once joint federation of Yugoslavia started. Its repercussions are not only those of new borders, but in transformative events ranging from new personal and social distances as well as new connective tissues: new futures built on shared histories. In this year’s Balkan Film Week, we will examine these fractions and archipelagos of differences and similarities in their continuous contesting of subjectivities and ideologies. Depicting violence that led to the disfigured landscape is not the aim of this year’s showcased movies.  Family, nationhood, aspirations and Kafkaesque situations, are juxtaposed at the archipelago of nations. What the images and stories of these films seek is engagement and joint examination of transnational emotions and experiences such as precariousness, loss, freedom and belonging. Common ground is thus an act of understanding the difference, or more precisely, borders, not only as a space of separation, but as a space of brokering the distances, providing care and accepting the other as yourself.

[1] Ahmed, Sara “The Cultural Politics of Emotion”, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2004; pp. 11.

[2] Butler, Judith „Frames of War. When Is Life Grievable? “, Verso, London, New York; 2009; pp.44.

Full Programme

Balkan Film Week 2020

The first edition of the Balkan Film Week was celebrated in 2017. In 2020 followed the second edition, where we presented eight films, including Vlastimir Sudar’s „Borders, Raindrops“. The director was present at the screening of the film, which was followed by a Q&A.

In June of 2020 we also organised a one-off online Balkan Film Night, with films and talks featuring Georgi Gospodinov and Teona Strugar Mitevska among others. For more information on that event click here.

Introduction #2

Marija Katalinić

he feeling and the knowledge of belonging is one of the most perplexing experiences in life. Although belonging seems like a question of personal matter, the verb a priori demands an addition to its own meaning; one needs to belongs to. To know that one belongs, such as to a group with which one shares values, characteristics and time and space experiences offers a sense of acceptance of being recognized as a subject of a certain origin. In this formulation, origin would relate to the “source”, the site of one´s belonging, which usually refers to instances such as family, nationality, state, society or culture. To belong to either of these groups may give one a deeper sense of feeling at ease or acceptance, but can also be a site of constant identity struggles or productive negotiations. Therefore, the notion of belonging was historically thought through the aspects of traditionality, firmness and rigidity. This week’s programme calls for a constant juxtaposition and convergence of those different dynamics within a framework of personal and shared cultures and histories. Having “roots” is often used as a linguistic metaphor: by representing soil and connection to the ground, it makes us think of linear history and stability. But the metaphor of a firm base, however, easily clashes with the notion of identity as a fluid matter in constant negotiation with what sometimes our affective self sees as “outside” influence. In that sense, belonging ultimately is something that is negotiated throughout one’s life on various levels in different time frames, different places and with different people.

For the second edition of Balkan Film Week, this year’s theme “Common ground: Origin and belonging” will screen films that speak about the complexities of the narratives which constitute an identity in a layered geographical space of the Balkan region. In three days, the audience will be able to see and think about different levels of belonging that not only converge in the mentioned region, but can be put in relation to most spaces and places around the world. The level of belonging stem from that of belonging to a family; belonging to the country of birth or wanting to belong to a country as a migrant, refugee or an asylum seeker; belonging to a certain religion and restating your religion; belonging to a sexuality and of a gender; belonging to a certain culture. This year’s eight films will inspect and discuss the levels of struggle and compromise that is inherent in the concept of belonging which by the very nature of inclusion of certain traits excludes other. This dialectic of simultaneous inclusion and exclusion is unavoidable topic in today’s globalized world of ever firmer inner boundaries.

Full Programme

Buch Wien 2023

The Buch Wien in 2023 was a resounding success and the TRADUKI programme attracted a fair deal of interest. Albanian author and journalist Lindita Arapi presented her novel Albanische Schwestern (tr: Florian Kienzle, Weidle Verlag) and spoke with Robert Pichler and Günter Kaindlstorfer about the future of Albania. The Slovenian authors Mojca Kumerdej and Vinko Möderndorfer presented their books – Unter die Oberfläche (tr: E. Köstler, L. Linde, F. Hafner, K. Almasy, Wallstein Verlag) and Die andere Vergangenheit (tr: Erwin Köstler, Andrej Leben, Residenz Verlag) – both at the fair and in Vienna’s old town. The evening event took place at the Austrian Society for Literature and was moderated by Katja Gasser. Also in the Austrian capital: The Croatian author Tatjana Gromača presented her novel Die göttlichen Kindchen (tr: Will Firth, edition Stroux) and Serbian author Bojan Savić Ostojić talked about his latest book Nichts gehört niemandem (tr: Mascha Dabić, eta Verlag) to the Austrian public.

Once more, we were shown how deeply the future is anchored in the past and how much the past shapes the present. It is a pile of forgotten history (or stories) at the Belgrade flea market that can be snapped up for a handful of dinars. It is not one past – but many, and always a different one.

We would like to thank Annemarie Türk for the fabulous programme and all the moderators and interpreters for their fabulous work. See you at the next Buch Wien!

Copyright: Österreichische Gesellschaft für Literatur

Full Programme

Buch Wien 2022

In 2022, the Buch Wien took place between the 24–27 November.

Over four days, TRADUKI presented authors from Southeast Europe at the book fair and in Vienna’s old town. We staggered with Anja Zag Golob and her poetry collection, dass nicht (t: Liza Linde), through the thorny labyrinth of lost love and followed Georgi Gospodinov in his novel, Zeitzuflucht (t: Alexander Sitzmann), through the delirious maze that is nostalgia: A creature that, just like Saturn, is about to devour its own child, namely the future. On Saturday evening Anna Baar, Mascha Dabić, Marko Dinić and Bachmann Prize winner Ana Marwan weaved an intricate literary web with a light Austrian touch. If by the end of that night one still didn’t know what was said and what wasn’t and what the whole thing was all about there was help on Sunday morning: Stefan Çapaliku discussed how everybody goes a bit crazy in their very own way in his novel Jeder wird verrückt auf seine Art (t: Zuzana Finger).

Full Programme

Buch Wien 2021

In 2021 the Buch Wien took place from 11–14 November.

Participants included author Rumena Bužarovska, who presented her collection Mein Mann, translated by Benjamin Langer, and writer Ioana Pârvulescu with her translator Georg Aescht, who together presented her novel Wo die Hunde in drei Sprachen bellen. Our programme also included Katja Gasser, Srdjan Knežević, Ogjnen Spahić, Tanja Stupar Trifunović, Goran Vojnović and many others.

The night before the Buch Wien opened a special evening was held at the Österreichische Gesellschaft für Literatur in honour of Fedia Filkova.

Full Programme

Buch Wien 2020

Unfortunately, in 2020, the book fair had to be cancelled. However, events at the ÖGL and Literaturhaus Wien were supposed go ahead but, alas, the odds were not in our favour and we had to rethink these events as well. In the end, two events took place.

Full Programme

Die guten Tage V

Thank you for Die guten Tage! Now for some snaps from the 5th edition of the good days at LCB! With Uroš Prah, Nataša Kramberger and Ilija Đurović, moderated by Irina Bondas, Hendrik Jackson and Hana Stojić. Dina Bjelić interpreted for Ilija. His excerpt was read by actress Maja Zećo. Thank you to the wonderful band Romenca (Oana Catalina Chitu & Co.) for the music.

Thank you to our curators Ismar Hačam & Ljubica Šljukić Tucakov!

You want more?
📕 Prah’s poetry collection ‘Erdfall’ (translated by Daniela Kocmut & U. P.), Luftschacht Verlag
📕 Kramberger’s essay ‘Mauerpfeffer’ (Ü: Liza Linde), Verbrecher Verlag
📕 An excerpt from Đurović’s novel ‘Sampas’ was translated as part of the project ‘texthelden/berlin setzt über’ by Elvira Veselinović

Images:  Tobias Bohm

Die guten Tage IV

The 4th edition of Die guten Tage at the LCB was a blast!

Thank you to our marvelous cast of authors, Lidija Dimkovska, Dino Pešut and Pajtim Statovci, for being with us on that balmy late summer evening.

Thank you to the moderators Irina Bondas, Ismar Hačam and Hana Stojić for posing inquisitive and inventive questions, to the interpreters Benjamin Langer, Stefan Moster, and again, Ismar Hačam for making sure everyone in the room understood what was going on, to Agnes Mann for reading the German passages with gusto and verve and to Ana Avramov and her companion for playing us out with their lovely tunes and melodies.

And last but no least: Thank you to the translators of the presented books – Alida Bremer, Stefan Moster and Alexander Sitzmann, and, of course, merci to the great audience.

Images: Tobias Bohm

Die guten Tage III

‘Die guten Tage’ at LCB were wonderful! Thank you to Asja Bakić, Lana Bastašić and Rumena Bužarovska for a marvelous evening. The venue was packed and the audience delighted! Topics of the discussion were: #Mars, #gynecologists, #hares VS #rabbits, #impostorsyndrome & much more!

The jazz band Hashima topped it all off with a great performance! If you want to watch the whole thing again (which you should!), here’s the link.

A big thank you also to the moderators, interpreters, and of course our venue, LCB.

Images: Tobias Bohm & Barbara Anderlič

Die guten Tage II

Die guten Tage, the good days, came to Wannsee!

Special thanks to Anja Golob, Sandra Gugić, Ivana Sajko, Edin Karamazov and everyone else who made this magical evening happen.

Die guten Tage

On 6 September, TRADUKI and the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin invited to a special literary evening at lake Wannsee. Four impressive authors from Southeast Europe read from their works published in German and talked about them with the moderators Eva Ruth Wemme, Jörg Plath, Ivana Sajko and Hana Stojić: Gabriela Adameșteanu from Romania (Lost Morning), Marko Dinić from Austria/Serbia (The Good Days), Georgi Gospodinov from Bulgaria (8 Minutes and 19 Seconds) and Slobodan Šnajder from Croatia (Repairing the World).

Almost 300 visitors came to meet the guests and their books. After the readings and talks, the evening ended with delicacies from the grill and the duo Barimatango: Atilla Aksoj and Jelena Milušić reinterpret the Sephardic-Jewish songs of the Balkans, keeping old melodies alive.

Images: Tobias Bohm
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