Where Words Flow

Gabriela Adameșteanu, born in 1942, is one of the most important voices in Romanian literature of the 20th and 21st centuries. Adameșteanu has won several accolades and her books have been translated into circa 20 languages. Her novel Dimineata pierduta (Der verlorene Morgen, 2018) from 1984 is considered a classic of contemporary Romanian literature. The novel received the Leipzig Book Prize 2019 in the translation category (t: Eva Ruth Wemme). Stimmen auf Abstand (t: Jan Koneffke, Wallstein Verlag) is the fifth novel by Adamesteanus to be published in German translation.

Barbara K. Anderlič, born in Ljubljana in 1984, has a degree in translation studies. Her translations include Samira Kentrić’s Balkanalien: Erwachsenwerden in Zeiten des Umbruchs (Jacoby & Stuart, 2021) and Jurij Devetak’s Nekropolis (Schaltzeit Verlag, 2023). In 2012, she was a member of the Standard audience jury at the Viennale film festival in Austria. She organises TRADUKI’s annual Balkan Film Week in Leipzig.

Dejan Atanacković, born in Belgrade in 1969, has held and curated visual art exhibitions since 1990s. For over twenty years he has taught courses on art, visual culture and writing at various university programmes in Florence and Siena. He received the 2018 NIN Award for his first novel Lusitania (translated and published in Italy, Albania, Lithuania and North Macedonia). His most recent novel is Tajni roman Gorana Grolovića (The Secret Novel of Goran Grolović), published in 2025. Monthly columnist for NIN magazine in the period 2018-2023. Since January 2024, he has been a regular columnist for the Belgrade weekly Novi Magazin; he currently also writes for Peščanik. He lives between Belgrade and Florence.

Flurina Badel, born in Lavin in 1983, is a polyglot writer and artist. After training as a journalist, she completed her Master of Fine Arts in Basel and studied at the Institute for Language Arts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Her first volume of poetry tinnitus tropic was awarded the Swiss Literature Prize in 2020 and her first novel Tschiera was awarded the Bündner Literature Prize in 2025. She lives in Ftan.

Selma Bajraktarević studied comparative literature and librarianship in Sarajevo. For several years she has been working in the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the Austrian Library in Sarajevo, which is located in the rooms of the National Library. As a member of the Staff Council of the Bosnian National Library, she has in recent years been heavily involved in public relations and political negotiations to lead the library out of its long-running crisis.

Lorina Bălteanu, born in 1960 in Moldova, is a poet and writer. She studied at the Moscow Institute of Literature and at the University of Dijon. She worked for the Writers’ Union and was editor of the magazines Orizontul and Sud-Est cultural. From 1992 to 1998 she was Director of the Soros Foundation Moldova and since 1998 Director of the Medialog Press Trust. In 2000, she settled in Paris, where she founded her own jewellery brand. She has published several volumes of poetry. Dieses Seil, das mich an die Erde bindet (t: Gundel Große, Klak Verlag) is her first novel. It was awarded the Constantin Stere Prize 2023 in Romania.

Anton Beck was born in Liechtenstein in 1996 and now lives between Liechtenstein and Zurich. He studied German and Scandinavian studies and works as a journalist. His debut novel #Jugend was published by Van Eck Verlag in 2016 and translated into Croatian in 2017. In spring 2025, Anton Beck’s volume of conversations Adolf Muschg – Erste Begegnungen was published by Kampa Verlag.

Vernesa Berbo was born in Priboj, Yugoslavia. She studied acting at the State Academy of Dramatic Arts in Sarajevo. She came to Berlin in 1993 as a war refugee. Since 1994, she has been working as an actress, musician and author at various theatres in Berlin, including the Maxim Gorki Theatre, Berliner Ensemble and Deutsches Theater. Der Sohn und das Schneeflöckchen is her first novel. Vernesa Berbo lives in Berlin.

Betty Boras, born in 1984 in Arad, Romania, came to Germany as a child. She studied German, philosophy and Spanish in Tübingen, works as a high school teacher and lives with her husband and two children near Stuttgart. Das schönste aller Leben is her debut novel.

Silvana Cimenti, born in 1981, studied German, Italian and Business Administration. She worked as a research assistant at the Franz-Nabl-Institut für Literaturforschung and at the Literaturhaus Graz. Since 2020, she has been working as an editor for manuskripte. Zeitschrift für Literatur. She lives in Graz.

Iulian Ciocan was born in Chișinău in 1968. He is an author, journalist and literary critic. His five novels have been translated into ten languages and published in numerous countries. He has received several literary awards, and in April 2024, the French-German cultural channel Arte broadcast a documentary about his novels published in France.

Dan Coman, born in 1975 in Gersa, is a Romanian author and poet. He has so far published four collections of poetry, four novels, and a short story collection.

Mihaela Danga has been coordinating the project TANDEM – Author with translator, translator with author over the past three years. The programme is carried out by New Europe College’s (NEC) Institute for Advanced Study in Bucharest, Romania, and supported by the S. Fischer Stiftung in Berlin and the Rotary Club Frankfurt am Main-Städel. In her role, she has participated with various Tandem Fellows in literary events, such as the FILIT Literary Festival in Iași and the Gaudeamus Book Fair in Bucharest. Danga is also a librarian at NEC and a freelance translator with extensive international experience. For the past ten years, she has also been part of a team coordinating a European Parliament educational programme aimed at high school students in Romania and the EU.

Stilyan Deyanov is a Bulgarian journalist and translator. He studied at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and at the Faculty of Philosophy of Sofia University. Between 2015 and 2019, he taught at the Faculty of History of the University of Vienna. He translates from Romanian into Bulgarian and has also produced numerous translations from French into Bulgarian, among them Nadège Ragaru’s Les temps feuilletés des changements. He is currently working on two translations: Ce preferi? by Dan Coman (from Romanian into Bulgarian) and La Société du spectacle by Guy Debord (from French into Bulgarian).

Marko Dinić, born in Vienna in 1988, lives in Austria and publishes in German. Dinić grew up in Belgrade, moved back to Austria in 2008 and studied German language and literature and Jewish cultural history in Salzburg. In 2012, he published poetry and prose for the first time in anthologies and journals. He published his first novel Die guten Tage (Zsolnay) in 2019. It was followed in 2025 by the novel Buch der Gesichter, which was nominated for the German Book Prize.

Ilija Đurović, born in Podgorica in 1990, writes poetry, prose and screenplays. He is the author of several books, including the award-winning poetry collection Brid and the novel Sampas, which was nominated for several awards, including the European Union Prize for Literature. The poetry collection Rand (t: Jelena Dabić) and the novel Sampas (t: Elvira Veselinović) were published in German translation by the Austrian Drava/Wieser Verlag.

Vedran Džihić is Senior Researcher at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs (oiip) and teaches at Vienna University and the University of Applied Arts Vienna. He is the director of the Center of Advanced Studies Southeastern Europe at the University of Rijeka and is a member of the “Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group”. Džihić is the author of numerous books and publications and is active in the realms of policy advisory and public debates. His research focuses on democracy development, nationalism, authoritarianism, EU enlargement and foreign policy, developments in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, protest movements, migration and democracy.

Maja Gebhardt was born in Sarajevo in 1981 and came to Germany as a refugee in 1992 because of the war in her home country. In 2005, she completed her German and English studies at the LMU Munich with a Magister Artium. Afterwards, she taught German as a foreign language in integration courses and worked as an examiner in the language centre of the association “Hilfe von Mensch zu Mensch”, but also in the Balkan Days team, which she still supports today by moderating the culture programme and organising its literature day. Since 2018, she has been living in Berlin, where she now organises book presentations for the eta Verlag and author talks for the BKS book club, where she also enjoys interpreting and translating from the BKMS languages into German.

Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević is a 22-year-old student of Sociology at The Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, journalist at Mašina.rs and assistant conductor at the first childrens’ rock choir in Serbia, RocHoir Kids. Anastazija is also an activist in Solidarna kuhinja (Solidarity kitchen) in Belgrade. Through her studies, work and activism, she focuses on labour rights, youth, inclusivity, and social justice.

Marko Gregur, born in 1982 in Koprivnica, Croatia, writes poetry and prose. His publications include several novels; some of them have been translated into Slovenian and German. He has received several awards for his work. In 2023, he founded the publishing house Neolit. His novel Vošicki was published in German translation in 2025 (t. Blažena Radas, Wieser Verlag).

Ena Katarina Haler was born in 1996 in Osijek, Croatia, and lives in Zagreb. She studied architecture and urban planning in Zagreb. Her first novel Nadohvat (2019) was awarded the Ksaver Šandor Gjalski Prize for Best Prose and the Ivan and Josip Kozarac Prize for Book of the Year. She works at the Institute of Art History and writes regularly for the weekly newspaper Express about architecture, urban heritage, literature, and film. Her novel Nevini will be published in German translation under the title Die Schuldlosen (t: Klaus Detlef Olof, Folio Verlag) in February 2026.

Maja Iskra grew up in Belgrade, studied in Vienna and Valencia, and has been living in Vienna for over twenty years. She is a landscape architect and media artist and works at the interface of urban development and visual communication. Her debut novel Uppercut was a finalist for the Serbian Beogradski Pobednik Prize and the Zlatni Suncokret Prize 2023 and was longlisted for the NIN Prize, the Laza Kostić Prize and the regional Meša Selimović Prize. Her story Hiraeth won second place at the European Short Story Festival in 2018.

Thede Kahl is Professor of South Slavic and Southeast European Studies at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Academia Europaea. He has led and coordinated numerous international research projects on endangered languages, minorities and the cultural heritage of the Balkans. He is chairman of the Vanishing Languages and Cutural Heritage Commission. His research focuses on Balkan linguistics, cultural identity and interethnic relations. Doctor honoris causa of the Universities of Bucharest and Arad.

Amir Kamber, born in 1977 in Sanski Most, grew up in Prijedor, from where he had to flee in 1992. He lives in Sarajevo and Germany, works for Westdeutscher Rundfunk and writes in Bosnian and German.

Jehona Kicaj, born in Kosovo in 1991 and raised in Göttingen, studied philosophy, German and modern German literature studies in Hanover. Following several scientific publications, she began publishing literary texts in 2020. She is co-editor of the anthology Und so blieb man eben für immer. Gastarbeiter:innen und ihre Kinder (2023). With her multi-award-winning debut novel ë, she was also shortlisted for the German Book Prize 2025.

Krsto Lazarević, born in 1989 in Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina, lives in Berlin and worked in the European Parliament on displacement, migration and European development cooperation. He worked as a journalist in Berlin, Vienna, Belgrade, and Sarajevo. Focal point of his work was the situation of refugees on the Balkan route. Together with Danijel Majić, he runs the podcast Neues vom Ballaballa-Balkan. Previously, he worked in the editorial department of the European press review Eurotopics – a service of the Federal Agency for Civic Education produced by the journalism network N-ost.

Eric Marr is a freelance presenter and journalist. Born in Leipzig and a law graduate, he has worked for ZDF for more than 20 years, including as a presenter and reporter. You can find more information at: www.ericmarr.net

Michael Martens joined the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” in 2000 and has been its correspondent for Southeast Europe since 2002. He reported from Belgrade (2002–2009), Istanbul (2009–2015), and Athens (2015–2019). He has been living and working in Vienna since 2019 and continues to be responsible for the same region. From 1995 to 2000, Martens lived and worked as a freelancer in Kyrgyzstan (Bishkek), Kazakhstan (Almaty), Ukraine (Kiev), and Russia (St. Petersburg). Over the decades, he has received several prizes and nominations for his reports from Eastern Europe. Book publications: Ich werde die Wunden offen halten. Ein Gespräch mit Günter Grass (1999); Irrfahrten. Ein ostjüdisches Leben. (2000); Heldensuche (2011); Im Brand der Welten. Ivo Andrić. Ein europäisches Leben (2019).

Masayah (Mia Puhar Rodin) is one of the most commanding new voices in Slovenia’s urban music landscape. Blending rap and R&B with a sharp contemporary aesthetic, her work is fearless, socially aware, and unapologetically personal. Her debut album Zavedno (2023) marked a defining moment, earning major recognition across the Slovenian music scene, including top honours for Album of the Year and Song of the Year. Though she writes primarily in Slovenian, Masayah’s music transcends language — the emotional force of her delivery lands instantly, connecting with audiences long before the words need translating. Her follow-up album is coming out in spring 2026.

Kristian Novak, born in 1979, is a Croatian writer, linguist and university professor. The novels Črna mati zemla (Black Mother Earth, 2013), Ciganin, ali najljepši (A Gypsy, But the Most Beautiful of All, 2016; the book is part of the Croatian school curriculum) and Slučaj vlastite pogibelji (In the Case of One’s Own Life, 2023) have seen a number of domestic and foreign editions as well as award-winning theatre adaptations. Novak is the winner of several literary prizes. Film adaptations of his novels are forthcoming. He lives and works in Zagreb.

Frosina Parmakovska, born in Skopje in 1985, studied Literature, Comparative Literature and Culturology. She is the author of several novels. For her third one, Countdown, she received the award for the best novel of the year, bestowed by the Slavko Janevski Foundation. The novel will be published in spring 2026 in the German translation by Benjamin Langer under the title Runterzählen (eta Verlag). Her fourth novel, On the Way Back, was published in 2020. Parmakovska lives and works in Skopje.

Vivian Perkovic, born 1978 in Winterberg, is a German journalist and television presenter. She studied German language and literature with a focus on media and theatre and South Slavic studies at the University of Hamburg. She currently works for 3sat Kulturzeit.

Slađana Nina Perković, born in 1981, is a French-Bosnian journalist and author. In 2018, she published the short story collection Kuhanje. Tante Stanas Beerdigung is her debut novel, for which she was nominated for the prestigious NIN Prize and the Meša Selimović Prize in 2021. In 2022, she was awarded a “Special Mention” by the jury of the European Union Prize for Literature (EUPL). In 2025, her second novel Lijek protiv melanholije was published. Perković divides her time between Paris and Belgrade.

Jörg Plath, born in 1960, is literary editor of “Deutschlandfunk Kultur” and writes for the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” and the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”. He has been an editor, ghostwriter, and jury member (German Book Prize, International Literature Prize). He is currently on the jury of Weltempfänger.

Marina Porobić, born in Zagreb in 1978, is curator and managing director of the BONE Performance Festival and currently works at the Federal Office of Culture. She has many years of experience in the Swiss cultural sector. She studied art history, English and political science in Lausanne and has lived in Bern since 1992.

Vahidin Preljević is a philologist of German as well as a literary translator (of works by Christa Wolf, Novalis, Büchner, Wedekind, Eduard von Keyserling, Hofmannsthal and others), cultural theorist, and essayist. He holds the chair of German-language literature and cultural studies at the university of Sarajevo. Since 2013, he has been the academic supervisor of the Austrian Library in Sarajevo. In 2017, he was awarded the Cross of Honour for Science and Art of the Republic of Austria.

Blerina Rogova Gaxha was born in Kosovo in 1982. She is a poet, essayist, and literary scholar. She holds a PhD in Philological Sciences and has served as an Associate Professor at the University of Gjakova. In 2024, she was appointed Director General of the National Library of Kosovo „Pjetër Bogdani“. Her awards include the Vilenica Award (Slovenia, 2015) and the National Prize for the best work of poetry (2010, 2020). She is the author of numerous research articles published in national and international journals. Several of her poems have been translated into German and have appeared in Wespennest, Lichtungen, Beton and the well-received anthology Grand Tour (Hanser 2019).

Robert Șerban, born in 1970 in Turnu Severin, Romania, is a writer and journalist. He is president of the Timișoara International Literature Festival, a member of the editorial board of the magazine Orizont and producer of the television programme Piper pe limbă (Pepper on the Tongue, TVR Timișoara and TVR 3). The following titles by Robert Șerban have been published in German translation by Pop Verlag: Nah an der Gürtellinie (2018), Ein plötzlich erlöster Glücksritter (2018) and Techniken der Tarnung (2025). In 2004, the Romanian presidential office honoured him with the Order of Cultural Merit (Knight). He lives in Timișoara/Timisoara.

Slobodan Šnajder was born in Zagreb in 1948. Šnajder was the long-standing editor-in-chief of the Yugoslavian theatre magazine Prolog. Between 2001 and 2004 he was the director of the Zagreb Youth Theatre. He has been working as a writer since 1966. His most renowned play internationally, Hrvatski Faust [The Croatian Faust], was staged at the Theater an der Ruhr in Mülheim in 1982 and at the Burgtheater in Vienna in 1993. His novel Doba mjedi won the Meša Selimović prize for the best novel of 2015. In 2019, the novel was published in German under the title Die Reparatur der Welt by Zsolnay. The German translation of his latest novel, Engel des Verschwindens, will be published in spring 2026, in time for the Leipzig book fair.

Mirnes Sokolović, born in Sarajevo in 1986, is a writer and researcher. He was one of the editors of the Sarajevo literary magazine SIC! and the volume Nation and Poststructuralism (2013). His publications include the novel Rastrojstvo (2013) and the essay collections Izokrenuti durbin (2020) and Kraj avanture (2021). His essay “Is Poetry Possible After Srebrenica?” was translated into German and published in Graz (Verlag Klingenberg, 2025). As a researcher, he worked in Graz, Vienna, and Granada.

Dubravka Stojanović is a full professor at the History Department of the University of Belgrade. Currently she is also the Head of the History Department. She teaches European contemporary history and the history of globalisation. She has published ten books, three of them dealing with historical memory and textbook analysis. She is a recipient of the French Chevalier de l’ Ordre national du Mérite.

Ana Svetel, born in Maribor in 1990, is a Slovenian author and poet. She teaches at the University of Ljubljana and is co-editor of the volume Sensory Environmental Relationships: Between Memories of the Past and Imaginings of the Future (2023, Vernon Press). Her publications also include several volumes of poetry and short story collections.

Justine Toms, born in 1971, is a university lecturer, author and entrepreneur. She studied philosophy, pedagogy and French philology at the University of Sofia. She is currently a lecturer at the New Bulgarian University and the Software University in Sofia. Over the past decade, she has researched the persecution of Armenians, the political upheavals in Europe before, during, and after World War II, as well as communism in Bulgaria and Bulgarian labour camps.

Annemarie Türk, born in 1953 in Klagenfurt, studied history, political science and Slovenian language as well as cultural management and sponsoring. From 1992 to 2013, she was head of cultural promotion and sponsorship at KulturKontakt Austria and was responsible for cultural cooperation with and in 15 countries in Eastern and Southeast Europe. Since April 2013 she has been working as a freelance curator and lecturer for various educational institutions, cultural organisations and universities.

Marko Vidojković, born in 1975, is a Serbian novelist, activist, musician, columnist, and TV anchor. He is best known for his novels Kandže, Sve crvenkape su iste, and E, baš vam hvala. In February 2023, he was forced to flee Serbia and go into exile.

András Visky, born in 1957 in Târgu Mureș, Romania, is a Hungarian-Romanian playwright, poet, dramaturge, essayist, and literary scholar. His work frequently explores themes of faith, freedom, memory, exile, and the legacy of totalitarianism, drawing in part on his childhood experience of deportation during Romania’s communist regime. His plays have been staged internationally and translated into several languages. For his work he has received numerous accolades. The publication of his first novel in 2022 marked a turning point in his career. The German translation was published under the title Die Aussiedlung and translated by Timea Tankó (Suhrkamp, 2025). He is currently working on his Trilogy of Eviction. The second novel, Illegalists, was published recently.

Marina Vujčić, born in 1966 in Trogir, Croatia, lives and works as a writer, columnist and editor in Trogir and Zagreb. She is one of Croatia’s best-known authors and has published numerous novels. Her novel Sigurna kuća has been the subject of heated discussions in Croatia since its publication. Under the title Sicheres Haus, the book will be published in spring 2026 by Residenz Verlag (t: Mascha Dabić).

Gudrun Wirz studied Slavic and Romance philology at the Universities of Freiburg, Bonn and Zagreb. Since 2006, she has been head of the Eastern Europe Department of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek and is thus also responsible for the Specialised Information Service for East, East-Central and Southeast Europe, which is funded by the German Research Foundation. She is a board member of ABDOS.

Behind the pen name Aleksandar Zograf stands Saša Rakezić, who was born in 1963 in Pančevo (opposite Belgrade on the Danube). He began publishing his comics in various Serbian magazines from 1986 onwards. Since the beginning of the 90s, the majority of his works have been published abroad, including in magazines such as Weirdo, The Comics Journal, Stripburger (Slovenia), Strapazin (Switzerland), Corrier Internacional, Quadrado (Portugal), etc. Since 2003, he has been publishing two-page colour comics every week for the independent Belgrade magazine Vreme. Anthologies of his Vreme comics were published in Serbia, Croatia, France, Italy, Portugal, Japan, and Hungary.